On 1 January 2021 over 81,000 British-based .eu registrants found their domain names had become “suspended”, meaning their domain names would not resolve to websites and emails would not transmit. The reason was that at the end of the Brexit “transition period” on 31 December, they were ineligible to hold or register .eu domains. To comply, individuals had to prove they were a citizen of the European Union or the larger European Economic Area, an EU citizen no matter where they lived in the world or for businesses, be a legally established entity in the EU or EEA.
Microsoft is calling for the US and the EU to follow Australia in introducing rules that require technology companies to share revenue with news organisations and support journalism.
Not many top-level domain registries publish surveys on how their domain names are being used, but EURid this week did with some interesting findings, like just over half (51.84%) of the 150,000 .eu domain names survey have websites with rich content, 81% of domains with MX records are active and 82.5% are connected to a web server.
The United Kingdom left the European Union on 31 January 2020, but the 11 month transition period meant the UK was still bound by the EU’s rules. At the end of the transition period it was known businesses and citizens of the UK would lose the right to register .EU domain names. What very few realised was that due to the terms and conditions for .fr, they would lose the right to register and hold .fr domain names as well.
The European Union called Tuesday on U.S. President Joe Biden to help draw up a common rule book to rein in the power of big tech companies like Facebook and Twitter and combat the spread of fake news that is eating away at Western democracies.
The European Parliament has passed a resolution calling for an EU law that grants workers a new human right: to be free to digitally disconnect from work without facing any negative repercussions from employers.
The “vile” and “odious” Leave.EU appears to have had their domain name suspended, temporarily at least, following the pro-Brexit campaign group having transferred registration of their domain name to an Irish businessperson who denies any involvement in Leave.EU.
It is “no longer acceptable” for social media giants to take key decisions on online content removals alone, following the high profile takedowns of US President Trump’s accounts on Facebook and Twitter, the European Commission has said.
Last month, the European Commission presented the Digital Services Act (DSA) and Digital Markets Act. The regulatory framework that has been long in the making aims to prevent and punish anti-competitive behaviours across digital platforms, in particular, those with at least 45 million users.
