Namecheap is a Domain name registrar and web hosting provider established in 2000. Owing to the war between Russia and Ukraine, Namecheap started to send emails to its customers in Russia that they will no longer provide services to them as Russia Invaded Ukraine.
The email claimed that “Unfortunately, due to the Russian regime’s war crimes and human rights violations in Ukraine, we will no longer be providing services to users registered in Russia,” the company says in the emails sent earlier today. While we sympathize that this war may not affect your own views or opinion on the matter, the fact is, your authoritarian government is committing human rights abuses and engaging in war crimes so this is a policy decision we have made and will stand by.”
They Further instructed the Russian users to move their top-level domain to other service providers and the deadline is supposed to be March 6th. The email also stated that they will assist with the migration and asked the users to reach out to them for further help.
403 Forbidden?
Namecheap additionally informed that the domains registered from particular zones won’t be able to use Namecheap hosting with immediate effect. The zones included,
.ru
.xn—p1ai(pф)
.by
xn--90ais (бел)
.su
After March 6, the domains that are not moved will automatically be set to 403 Forbidden HTTP errors.
Many Russians were angry at this decision and started to criticize the company’s decision. Namecheap’s CEO gave an explanation on this.
“We haven’t blocked the domains, we are asking people to move. There are plenty of other choices out there when it comes to infrastructure services so this isn’t “deplatforming”. I sympathize with people that are not pro regime but ultimately even those tax dollars they may generate go to the regime.” – Richard Kirkendall, CEO of Namecheap.
He further added, “People that are getting angry need to point that at the cause, their own government. If more grace time is necessary for some to move, we will provide it.”
Namecheap has been providing services for almost 11 million customers and holds a massive number of 10 million domains.
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