EURid, which manages the European Union’s common domain, .EU, has announced that domain registration rules have been simplified in a big way. Previously, registrants had to confirm they were residents of the EU or European Economic Area. The rule remains in force, but European citizens living outside the EU now can also register domain names.
EURid’s statement says that the change opens up the ccTLD to “millions of Europeans living around the world”. Domain Incite notes that in practice, almost anyone can now register a domain name in the .EU zone. It is easy to check residency using the mailing address in the Whois record, but there are no demands on passport data in the documents that regulate the relations between EURid and registrars, so no chance to check their citizenship. It looks like some additional mechanisms will be introduced to do this, but nothing is known about them so far.
According to the latest data, there are about 3.6 million .EU domain names. However, that number has decreased by about 200,000 over the last three years. Observers say this decline is related to Brexit, so many Brits and British companies refuse to use .EU domains. Perhaps this simplification is designed to compensate this loss.
