How will US sanctions affect Crimean domains?
February was a challenging month for Crimea's IT industry. Google blocked AdSense accounts, Apple announced it was ceasing operations in Crimea, and PayPal stopped serving the autonomous republic.
US sanctions have also impacted the domain industry—American registrars are required to terminate all business relationships with residents of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea.
This means that all international domains registered in Crimea – .com, .net, .org, .info and others – could be deleted as early as March.
In our opinion, this practice is superficial:
- Many clients left the peninsula after the situation in Crimea worsened, but their domains remained registered in the Republic of Crimea, and only for this reason are subject to deletion;
- Some registrants simply made a mistake when specifying a Crimean postcode. But their domains may still be blocked.
Why are domains blocked?
The first wave of blocking began back in January 2015. Back then, GoDaddy, the largest registrar, announced the deletion of Crimean domains. Paid domain names were deleted on January 31 and put up for sale. The reason: US government sanctions, which prohibit transactions with individuals and legal entities from the Autonomous Republic of Crimea. Moreover, some user accounts were blocked purely "for the sake of company," as stated.Here:
Russia's largest registrars, RU-CENTER, R01, and REG.RU, were also subject to sanctions because they worked with partners in the United States.
Consequences for NIC.UA clients in Crimea
Our international domain registration partner, PDR LTD, is also registered in the US and will not be able to support domains for its clients and partners in Crimea.
Of course, polite Americans lament: "We can't express how grateful we are for the opportunity to do business with you all these years. But unfortunately, our hands are tied in this case." At the same time, PDR LTD promises to facilitate the process of transferring domains to another provider.
We offered our clients the opportunity to transfer their Crimean domains to our partner in Germany, where US sanctions do not apply. This can be done up to46112Unfortunately, domain renewals and transfers are only permitted once every 60 days. This means that recently registered or renewed domains will be deleted almost "by chance." We do our best to assist in such situations. For example, if a client no longer lives in Crimea, they only need to provide the relevant documentation. In this case, the domain can be retained.
If you have international domains registered in Crimea, you can still keep them. To do this, you need to renew them now and contact oursupport service, so we can transfer your domains. Please note: you must initiate the transfer before March 26th, as domain transfers take 5 days.
