Dear XXXX,
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. 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.
If you hold any top-level domains with us, we ask that you transfer them to another provider by March 6, 2022.
Additionally, and with immediate effect, you will no longer be able to use Namecheap Hosting, EasyWP, and Private Email with a domain provided by another registrar in zones .ru, .xn--p1ai (рф), .by, .xn--90ais (бел), and .su. All websites will resolve to 403 Forbidden, however, you can contact us to assist you with your transfer to another provider.
Customer Support, Namecheap
And, you know, those people you want to point at their own government, they won't get it. They're brainwashed by Putin's propaganda which has reached true Goebbels level. It was going there for a while, Putin's regime began with gradually shutting down free media 20 years ago. Yes, people do have internet, and Russian internet is full of Putin's propaganda. Russian authorities are banning websites telling the truth (yes there's a government powered DPI firewall which every major ISP has to install by law). And they're working on a law which will make it a crime with 15 years of sentence just for calling the war the war. So I wouldn't count on that. The only thing that might work is hearing the truth from friends and families, but it's very hard to talk to those people. I'm trying, though, when there's still at least some reasoning.
I'm not complaining. While I did try to fight against the regime since its beginning, I could've done more. We screwed this up, and we're responsible, and all the inconveniences we might have cannot be compared to the suffering of people of Ukraine. Just saying.
There are thousands of people 'getting it' being arrested on the streets of Moscow.
If enough people get inconvenienced that would normally not think twice, maybe there is a chance it will turn their heads to think for a second about what is happening around them.
I'm so sorry you have to live under these conditions. You don't need to compare yourself to the suffering of the Ukrainian people. You're also in pain.
Have you thought about leaving? Can you and your family and friends easily emigrate?
I hope the best for you too.
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Believe me, I'm very angry at my government. Unlike you, I've been protesting the regime for several years, putting my health and well-being at risk. I've donated thousands of dollars to anti-regime organizations. And I'm currently in the process of fleeing the country because of this.
So I'm also very angry at you, for screwing me over when I'm in a really fucking vulnerable position, as well as hundreds other developers who depended on your company.
My situation is different, but equally anecdotal. I left Russia years ago, as soon as I could. My company isn't in Russia. I don't pay taxes in Russia. I am not even Russian by ethnicity, but I have relatives in Russia and I am still holding a Russian passport. Does that make me a bad person? Even if I were Russian, is it against the ICANN rules to belong to certain ethnicities or nationalities?
As a final note, people who live in CIS all have friends in both countries. For them the war is real and not on a TV screen. Imagine how many hours will those people waste changing those damn configs instead of helping people in need in both Ukraine and Russia...
If you have the ability to hit the Russian government where it hurts - in their money - not using it to defend your employees is as unconscionable as not picking up that rock to defend your family.
War has never differentiated between innocent and guilty in the past, nor can it differentiate today. It's a battle between governments, and people who are really hurt will always be the innocent.
Fuck war. But don't blame someone for defending themselves, their family, their employees, with the weapons they have, not the weapons you wish they had.
If you've been protesting your regime for years, why don't you also understand their protest?
It seems like you are both aligned here.
Just out of curiosity, how are you screwed? Is it so hard to move to a different registrar? It's not like you are being kicked out from a cloud provider, which would indeed be a pain in the ass.
please...
Nobody hates Russians. Hell, I like Russians a lot. But this is war. World is unfair. I hope you see your "sanction" is such a minor grievance if compared to people that just died in an unjust war. That's why it would have been more elegant and with decorum just to be silent and accept this without whining that (omg!) your domain needs to move.
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Edit: It seems like he has responded to other comments but not this one.
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I've been setting up infrastructure to do blockade running over the obviously coming great Russian firewall for the last few days and made a mistake of relying on your service. I did expect payment troubles. I did not expect you to help the Kremlin in isolating the Russian populace from uncensored news and communication platforms beyond its reach. Right now my grandparents are going to have greater problem finding news about the war from any other source beyond Putin-controlled bullshit faucets, and so will I. It's likely also the case for antiwar protesters.
Isolating Russian users from foreign internet services is literally the Kremlin's dream, something it could not achieve for a long time even with all the power amassed over the years. It's revolting to see Namecheap and others doing Putin's job for him, while claiming to stand up against his war crimes. And spare me the "tax dollar" spiel. The overwhelming revenue going towards the war comes from oil and gas exports (even more so with the currency crisis), something that is explicitly not being sanctioned - less the Western tech executives are inconvenienced.
If you're going to harm people because of their country of birth to feel better about yourself - say it straight. What you're doing right now will not help a single Ukrainian, and will make Putin more resilient, not less.
It's almost certainly the case that they face mass resignations and walkouts if they don't cut off Russia. I think I would trust the Ukrainian employees of Namecheap to know better than a random individual on the internet what is in the best interest of those employees and their community.
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That's 100% the Kremlin's doing. USA and Europe are effectively already at war with Russia and it will only escalate up from there.
Just because it is covered up or whitewashed by the media in the U.S. does not mean it is not happening.
Blaming the citizens of a country for the actions of their Government is absolutely atrocious behavior. I used to have all my domains on Namecheap. I have since moved them, but now I will make sure I never use your service ever again and will never recommend you to anyone else either.
Also the argument that tax money is supporting the regime is ridiculous. If citizens could CHOOSE how their tax money was spent it would be one thing, but in the U.S. our tax money has literally gone to providing weapons and training to terrorist organizations.
Again, this doesn’t EXCUSE the actions of the Russian government, but taking their people hostage to use as leverage is disgusting and despicable.
A lot of people are making assumptions about this being a purely PR "woke" move of some kind, ignoring this: https://www.namecheap.com/careers/ukraine
Seems pretty personal to me. If I or my people were actively being bombed by an invading force, I'd take it personally, too. And then I'd take action about it.
I for one like this. If you are a shitty citizen in our increasing global world, one positive benefit of globalization is the many ways that that global world can now bite you in the ass.
There is no excuse for wars of aggression. And in the past people would throw their hands up and say "well what can I do?" Well we are all connected now, so increasingly there is something you can do.
Just because they don't cut off the American government, especially Texas, from services, doesn't mean that they can't stand against Russia. This is a blatant false dichotomy. In addition, I 100% blame every tax-payer of Texas for the human rights violations going on there, even those who would call themselves liberals.
Vote with your wallets. Leave.
Iraq was a nation that had invaded and annexed a neighboring country, a scorched earth retreat, committed domestic human rights abuses, had attempted to acquire various WMDs in the recent past, and had perpetrated chemical weapon attacks. Afghanistan was knowingly sheltering a group that repeatedly targeted and killed Americans worldwide, culminating in the deadliest attack on civilians in world history.
Again, that's not to say war was the best option on the table, nor no blood on the hands of the US in the end... but not a single one of these justifications for war applies to Russia invading Ukraine.
As another commenter said, the morality of military force is a spectrum of grays, not black and white – but just because criticism can be found in every case doesn't mean every one is equally unjustified or amoral.
Is this true? My understanding was that (despite the current conflict), the world has been experiencing a rather unique period of relative peace under US hegemony compared to the past. This is obviously true when looking at timescales since the late 19th/early 20th centuries [https://oneearthfuture.org/opinion-insights/world-getting-mo...]. Clearly the world has been significantly less violent since WW2, which is the time that the US became a superpower.
Datapoints on prior eras are significantly less robust, but the US wasn't a leader at those points anyway. We do know that wars were widespread and brutal, despite having much less advanced weaponry, and we know that life expectancies are far longer today than in the past.
> Again, this doesn’t EXCUSE the actions of the Russian government, but taking their people hostage to use as leverage is disgusting and despicable.
This is how economic sanctions work. What's the alternative? Do nothing? Economic sanctions place pressure on the politicians in the aggressive nation to stop their aggression. The alternatives are to do nothing (morally unfathomable) or to fight them (in which case Russians will die, and if Putin's threats are believed, maybe we all die).
I find it concerning and perplexing that so many hackers are seemingly more concerned about Russia's economy than Ukrainian lives. Every day the conflict goes on, Ukrainians die (and if you're so concerned about economy - their economy is getting destroyed too!). Logically, anything that moves us towards ending the conflict peacefully and quickly reduces lives lost and will spare all involved from further economic retribution.
Additionally, this is personal for Namecheap. Imagine being bombed by a country and having strangers tell you that you have to keep providing services to members the country that is killing your friends, family, or even you! You must continue serving the country that is bombing your home! It is truly absurd.
- Aim of sanctions is to turn Russians against Putin.
- Obviously, you want to target those that don't already hate Putin (no point in preaching to the choir).
- Sanctions should be felt, but should also direct more anger at government than the entity doing sanctions.
- For example, sanctioning a hospital or stopping medical supplies into Russia would be a stupid sanction.
- Second, you want to focus them on people who have sway. Most sanctions are focused on the wealthy and influential Russians. Forbidding oligarchs from living luxury lives in Europe is a good one.
- Your Russian users are very unlikely to hold any sway over Putin, and I'd bet 95% of them already hate Putin (no need to convince them) -- it's a tech crowd.
- My guess is that the vast majority of Namecheap customer's are exactly the ones that will protest against Putin, or organize information campaigns against him. Removing their means of communication won't advance your objective.
- If EU/US would sanction Kasparov or Navalny that would be a 0 IQ move, it's just an extremely dumb thing. This is sort of along those lines.
(I'm not Russian btw, I live in another European country and not a customer)
Ukraine themselves understand how to fight the information war. You treat your prisoners of war well, give them tea and let them call their parents. They'll tell their parents that Putin sent them on a murder campaign on a neighbor, and that they're lucky to be alive and treated well.
That's how you play the game.
No, we're way past this with things like leading semiconductor manufacturers stopping deliveries to any Russian entity. The goal has shifted to depriving Russia of resources needed to wage a war. Soon Russians will be so poor that their government will have their hands full keeping domestic dissent under control, and hopefully won't be able to wage foreign wars.
This is cancer treatment on a global scale. Unfortunately, it damages not only the tumor, but rest of the body as well, but there are no other options left.
Putin has announced recently that cross-border payments in USD and EUR are to be blocked. Which means that most Russians affected by this won't be able to pay for a registrar outside of Russia.
People here have mentioned transferring their domain names to NIC.RU, the state-owned registrar. Which means that Putin actually receives more money because of this.
Speaking of taxes. What about people who used the domains for personal use? Or for non-profit orgs?
THIS
I've paid upfront exactly because of this, I was expecting some kind of ban of cross-border bank transfers. The same reason I've paid for my VPN upfront. No one in Russia, especially those who are politically active, can't really go around without some kind of self-hosted infrastructure.
Now, should Namecheap lag even a little bit with a transfer, which I've HAD to pay for (thankfully, I was able to use other provider rather than nic.ru), I will be left without my private XMPP service, self-hosted e-mail and a lot of stuff which makes my communications at least relatively safe.
While making such moves, they just made my life more dangerous, at time when government already looks for someone on the inside to blame.
When you cut a country off from trade, obviously some agents within that country are going to get more business.
Much like Verisign makes money for each .com/.net and Affilias makes money for each .name/.org that is registered?
Isn't the whole point of running a registry that you also get to collect some sort of fee for running the service?
Realistically how much money are we talking about?
But without SWIFT, will they have trouble to pay the ICANN fee?
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[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Rose
Counter point: Look at West Germany and Japan after WWII. The West changed tack pretty quickly after the war ended. The West wasn’t against the people, they were against the ruling parties and the infrastructure/policies that supported it.
If it’s possible to punish an authoritarian aggressor without harming the citizens, I’d love to hear ideas. But in Germany and Japan, the average citizen paid a huge price for getting caught up on the wrong side of the war and I’m not sure how much differently it could have been done without countering the unprovoked aggression of both nations of which other country’s citizens paid a huge price.
If having to transfer a domain sends someone scurrying to Putin, they were far from innocent to start with.
All that to say I am cancelling my Namecheap account and in the future will actively recommend alternatives to your services. Not only is what you're doing completely ineffective, it is likely doing more harm than good to decent people.
Yes. To keep your account active, please simply instigate a revolution against Erdoğan and achieve regime change. Thanks.
To some degree there are just inevitable risks in life, but it's absolutely in your interest to influence your government into doing as few terrible things as possible, and to move to one that does less terrible things, and I for one think that's a very good thing.
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I understand you have a lot of employees in Ukraine and you have to show support. Your heart is in the right place. I empathize and would try to do the same if I was in your shoes. But you didn't do a good job here, unfortunately.
When gitlab had to make a similar move [0] at least they had a good excuse — security of their customers' data.
Your message does not make any excuses like that. You straight up equate being russian / living in russia / whatever it is with supporting the war. You fell victim to the same primitive xenophobic thinking you're claiming to condemn.
This is a bad decision. Being a CEO is a tough job, but I think you could do better. I wish you luck.
[0] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21437334
For additional context to readers, according to LinkedIn 834 of 1,137 employees (73.35%) are located in Ukraine.
https://www.linkedin.com/company/namecheap-inc/people/
From parent:
>I sympathize with people that are not pro regime but ultimately even those tax dollars they may generate go to the regime.
Tax dollars or not, you're imposing extra costs on your users, most of which relied on your services for decades, and terminating any trust they ever had in your services.
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Russians are out in the streets protesting and even Russian oligarchs are speaking out. Apparently that doesn't mean anything to Namecheap though, they're all guilty. This is really a PR move, nothing more.
As others have highlighted, providing services to any American supports war crimes, if we go by their logic. No one should be doing anything like this unless they are trying to comply with sanctions. Which, as far as I know, are only currently targeting senior Russian officials. Even then, sanctions tend to hurt everyday people more than the regimes they're trying to target. Does anyone really think that people in an authoritarian country can control what their leader does? This is the same mindset that lead to the Japanese internment camps in WWII, just a difference in degree.
Even though I've been a happy Namecheap customer for years and have recommended them to others, this is extremely troubling and I'm going to look at migrating my own domains from Namecheap. Bonus points for being too cowardly to advertise this on your site.
Thankfully I don't use namecheap, but if I did, I would be moving my domains out of it right now, russian or not. I do not wish to rely on a service run by people who may throw a childish tantrum and terminate my service at any time due to something I may not have any control over.
Lets take a moment to examine the language you are using. The language given described the reason they feel they need to take the action they are taking even if you disagree with their reasoning but you have baselessly redefined it as "spite" and a "childish tantrum". It looks like exactly the opposite.
They have chosen as is their right not to do business with some customers and you suggest that by forcing clients to spending a few hours migrating to another providers they are "attacking them".
The only people being attacked are those who are getting shot and blown up. Tone down your rhetoric and don't make events of international and historic scope about you. Expand your perspective.
You can't have it both -- benefit from western companies and technology, but keep a leader in power that is completely indifferent to any human life and suffering other than (arguably) the one of the Russian people.
We like to think that we're all just citizens under the rule of the few, but we're all complicit in who governs us, whether we like to admit to it or not.
In the west we're all very aware that any kind of regime change in Russia will involve bloodshed amongst innocent Russian people, but that is already happening right now -- except you've exported the genocide to your neighbors, Belarus and Ukraine, and that is unacceptable.
Dude, that is how it works. Due to the nukes, the only ones who can remove Putin is the Russian people.
A large percentage of Russians still support Putin, the sanctions are a great motivator for fixing that issue.
If you were really interested in attempting to do the right thing, you would ban on a case-by-case basis, or donate a percentage of your profits to the Red Cross in Ukraine or something. There's no justification for this heavy-handed nonsense.
I'll do my best to stay away from your company.
this whole thread and people's responses disgust me, people saying they're virtue signaling, and that it's "bad business practice" to cut off services like that. They're in a warzone and this is what people are upset about?!
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And you know I know for sure it’s immature and stupid? The way you’ve been responding in this thread. “Okay maybe we will extend”, “maybe lenient if we see it’s needed”. Ffs! Looks like someone at namecheap has gone bonkers.
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I'm in this thread getting angry and I live in California. Are you prepared to be consistent by looking into my government's "war crimes and human rights violations"?
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Putin is a maniac and his war is horrible.
But as you've probably seen from all the 'prisoners of war' videos out of Ukraine, most soldiers don't want to fight this war.
Russians that are savvy enough to setup their own domain, will also be the ones that use a VPN to read foreign news. Very few in the Russian "tech scene" like Putin.
Shutting down their means of communication may make it harder for them to stage demonstrations, etc.
Instead, you should "magically" add emails to their inboxes, with e.g. Zelenskyy's speech to the Russian people, or add banners when they login to control panels etc.
(I'm not Russian btw, I live in another European country and not a customer)
Most soldiers? How many remorseful POWs have you seen vs. the ~200k soldiers actively participating in the war?
Some POWs will say almost anything to not get killed and have a chance at freedom again. Just like in a trial, a statement or confession made under duress is not valid and they’re likely under extreme duress and afraid for their lives.
They are ruthless and this war is going to be absolutely ruthless if it will not stop soon. Russians had no trouble bombing and shelling sieged cities, hospitals, and even UN convoys in Syria, and they'll do it in Ukraine, too. They're alredy using cluster munitions in the city streets, shit like butterfly mines, etc., and it's going to be a lot worse once they set up heavy artilery and complete the sieges.
This time they'll not be able to lie about it in the west all that easilly, judging by the reaction in my country. Xenophobia will be less of a hindrance to seeing things clearly, at least in some eastern european countries, compared to their Syrian involvement.
But I'm already starting to see the same justifications being used to bomb the cities, as was used in Syria.
You should not believe them. They might be just lying.
To everyone complaining, have you first tried to contact support and explained your situation? It's clear that Namecheap will talk to you to understand your situation and help where it can. It's also one of the reasons why I switched to them many years back. Not every company hides behind their nameless, automated robots.
Spending hours writing emails back and forth in my non-native language is not exactly my top priority at the moment, as you may guess because of recent events.
The email is very clear: I have to move regardless of my views or opinions, or else. ToS is very standard as well: service may be interrupted at any moment with no guarantees, all discussion is to happen in US courts.
I see no basis for a support ticket.
Incidentally I am in the process of transferring a domain to namecheap today.
I'm a US citizen, so roughly half of my gross income goes to support US war crimes. It seems like I should move off of Namecheap now to avoid disruption to my service in the event that you ever grow a spine.
That's unlikely, cf. https://www.cbpp.org/research/federal-budget/where-do-our-fe....
What about the American regime currently bombing Somalia?
Or the Saudi regime currently bombing Yemen?
Or the Israeli regime currently bombing Syria?
Or the ... regime currently bombing ...? You get the point, surely.
Why the selective enforcement against just this one particular regime?
Why today? Perhaps the answer lies in the field of sociology or psychology.
As pointed out by others before me, this mainly pushes affected customers to transfer domains to Russia-based providers, increasing their profits (a little) and sphere of control (a little more).
...But it makes them feel better?
It's irrelevant what previously occurred by other governments.
This is still 'de-platforming', even though there are alternatives. There are alternatives to every service that has 'de-platformed' people, but it doesn't change what you're doing.
Unlike youtube domain registration is fungible. Moving from namecheap to <insert registrar> means your computer is silently switched from talking to foo vs bar with no apparent difference to the end user.
It only becomes and effective means of deplatforming if your registrar doesn't allow you to transfer your domain or you literally can't find a registrar who will accept you.
Could you please consider a Saudi Arabia Service Termination?
1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saudi_Arabian%E2%80%93led_inte...
I just wanted to voice that I think this is a moral decision and though I am happy with my current registrar, I am going to consider switching to Namecheap, or at least using you guys next time I register a new domain.
Not at all. It’s this particular message and phrasing that rubs me entirely the wrong way.
As well as all the people here that claim Russians should have done more to stop this.
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Come on, you are clearly harassing them pointlessly. And you are doing that over something they don't have much of a choice about.
> We have people on the ground in Ukraine being bombarded now non stop.
That is sad and abhorrent, but this kind of moral posturing and superficial puritanism is both ineffective and hypocritical. I am pretty sure you are aware that some of your own tax dollars also go towards bombing people.
I will not register any domains with you guys in the future.
I agree with you politically in this case. But that's just a pure coincidence. Next time, we might be on opposite sides of politics. When I select a registrar, I don't want to have to take into account the arbitrary politics of the management, because they won't always agree with me. Even inside your company, the next CEO, or the previous CEO, or your co-workers, will always not agree with your political views.
Besides, you can see that your approach often harms the wrong people. One guy in the comments below is a Russian who has been working to oppose Putin's regime for years, and now you're actually hurting his work in Russia. You responded by allowing exceptions to your policy. Are you ready to review tens of thousands of applications for exceptions on a case by case basis?
This is a dangerous precedent and you should be better than this.
First of all, tax rubles.
Second of all, tax rubles of your customers are negligible compared to oil money. The basic scheme of Russia is that the guards are paid the first cut of oil money. Removing even more options from the general population, and reducing their contact with the West, just makes them weaker compared to the guards. Thanks.
I am a proud American -- but, I am convinced that my country started this entire episode and planned to have it be so for a long, long time. 9/11, Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan, Syria, Yemen, etc. just got in their way. Instead of drawing a rational meet-me-in-the-middle red-line with Russia (ex: Poland and the Baltics) that we could live with, we decided to take Ukraine for this ride. We did that. We encouraged Zelensky to talk about acquiring nukes, grabbing Crimea back, grabbing Luhansk and Donestk, joining NATO and the EU, etc. -- instead of encouraging Austria-like neutrality, we promoted our-way-or-the-highway.
And now what are we doing? Fighting to the last Ukrainian? Fighting until they lose even more in a country that has lost ~20% of its population from its peak? We are literally sacrificing their country and encouraging suicide. This. is. just. wrong!
I will ensure myself and no one I know will ever use your service.
I want nothing to do with a company who punishes people arbitrary.
This is correct, but your actions are going to silence (or at least muffle or interrupt) these people's voices. Don't double down on it because you're riding some righteousness high. You still have time to backpedal and not act like a vain fool.
The tax dollars you are talking about are pennies to the oligarchs. You are only hitting regular people with this selfishness. It's a pathetic gesture, and I'll never use your services.
I transferred my three domains to Cloudflare. Cheers.
A better way you could have done this would be to announce non-renewal but have a single-renewal escape clause for people who are too busy to deal with it. This would allow you to make your point without shafting the consumer. You could also have given something back like a one-time at-cost discount on moving to new replacement domains. You know, act in solidarity with your customer instead of against them.
PS. It's not too late to fix this. Be part of the internet we love, the internet that crosses borders and joins people.
Nationalism is an infantile disease. It is the measles of mankind. - Einstein
Maybe you're not worried about business continuity of the newly sanctioned customers, but other customers who aren't currently sanctioned but may be subject to future sanctions because they don't control the regime they live in would appreciate a more reasonable continuity process.
Of course, if these sanctions are as a result of legal requirements, gotta follow the law. But, so far, there doesn't seem to be a blanket ban on business with people in Russia; other than banking restrictions make it hard to transact.
Many left Russia years ago but they are still being persecuted because of where they were born.
Segregation is not the answer.
does not sound like a right reason for your actions. Because with this, there are a bunch of other countries you should be suspending your services for. US, Israel, India off the top my head and you might want to include some Arabic countries to the list.
> people on the ground in Ukraine being bombarded
makes your reasons legitimate though as you probably don't have people in other countries as victims of war crimes.
This is absurd in general, and more absurd in a pseudo-democracy where elections are rigged and the man in charge listens to no-one.
I understand from the thread that NameCheap has staff in Ukraine that are currently fighting for their lives. This is extremely tough for everyone involved.
But punishing Russian individuals who are on the good side of this fight is a knee-jerk reaction. It doesn't make sense and does more harm than good.
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I have few domains with you and will be moving. If you don't understand what services your company provides and who are your clients ie. that these can be varied people and businesses and how these sweeping measures can affect them, then I don't want tomorrow to end up without domain because I had idea for domain that ended with ru, or ly (Libya) or some other smaller country domain that ended up on media shit list.
Those in Russia and in that region might be a problem with blocked credit cards and such.
Yes it is. On the small scale, you are removing them from your platform. On the larger scale, if every registrar were to follow your example, users would be cut off at a deep level from free access to the internet.
What happens to domains that aren't moved by the deadline?
So you're essentially saying is that it would be better if Russian civilians suffer poverty, where do you even draw the line with this reasoning?
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> If more grace time is necessary for some to move, we will provide it.
Why not 14 or 30 days? I've moved domains before (many years ago) and I think it took > 10 days depending on lots of factors, complications, and even had to cut support tickets, etc.. So I'd hate to see an innocent Russian freelancer get punished by this, if they missed your notification and had to move in a hurry.
I am pro-ukraine and have donated and I'm helping in other ways. However, I could not disagree with this decision more. The Russian people need support now more than ever. If it's mandatory because of sanctions, then that's that.
Otherwise this is alienating the people inside Russia that are most likely to help, the educated, globally connected tech and business people. They read western papers and are the ones being locked up for protesting.
I've had multiple discussions over the last few days with people inside Russia that are appalled. They're acting, and organizing, but that takes time.
It's easy to coast along and not stick your head up, and they're realising they can't do that any more.
Rather than cutting people off, use your customer list in Russia to spread the word. Link to the attrocities.
If we all really want to go that next step, it's gas to Europe (which is still effectively excluded from the sanctions).
I think businesses need to stay out of politics and social issues. You're, in effect, punishing people who have nothing to do with what the Russian government chose to do.
Either way, I'm noting you down for BDS.
I suggest you also employ people in Palestine, Somalia, Yemen, Iraq, Myanmar, Kashmir, etc.
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You are attacking the wrong group of people. Being against Putin doesn't mean being against the Russian people. What happens is you hurt more innocent people.
You are jumping in a bandwagon because it feels good. This isn't a responsible logical action that doesn't achieve anything but hurts the wrong group who you would think we would want on our side.
Actions like these benefit Putin more than to harm him. If the Russian people are isolated from the rest of the world they'll be less likely do to anything about their oppressive regime.
So you are asking me to leave but not letting me go.
Speaking as a Namecheap customer for several years now.
I just learnt in hard way that I am blamed for being Russian citizen(by ethnicity I’m not Russian), even if I live, work, pay all taxes in the UK?
How it’s different from nazis blaming Jewish for being Jewish?
So be the one who stands alone, because I guarantee that the vast majority of people pointing fingers aren't doing a single damned thing, apart from being an armchair warrior.
Are you going to ban all European citizens because of the actions of their government?
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-02-24/european-...
I am a business owner that sells services worldwide. We've just checked and found that a non-trivial number of our customers are registered in Russia. I don't feel comfortable with our company receiving their money.
I am appalled and horrified by the invasion and I wish to make this right some how. I just don't know what to do here as the leader. I've had relationships with some of these clients for years, and I know them to be good people. (Others, not so much - they will be easy to lose.)
The other thing is - and I'm ashamed to say this - I have a lot of fear about being drawn into the spotlight by publicly removing customers in the way that you have. We are a well-known data provider in our industry with clients all over the world, and I personally rely on this business for my livelihood. As I said, I feel ashamed and guilty about this, but I just don't feel brave enough to take a stand like you have. That said, I do want to set this right.
So I wonder what can be done?
- We can close the website to new visitors from Russia, and prevent new paying registrations, as an immediate first step.
- We can make a donation to the defence and rebuilding of Ukraine, covering the entire amount of revenue we received from Russian companies in the past year.
- We can contact paying clients located in Russia, informing them that their service is being terminated at our discretion, as we are no longer able to serve clients in Russia. We'll have to check our T&Cs for termination as there may be a 30 day cooldown, but we can certainly immediately stop their payments.
I know this isn't even a half-measure and I feel terrible about that. I'm just too afraid of having a target upon me or my company right now. I will just do what I can because it feels right.
That way any Russians doing business with you that do support Putin will pull their money (or you take their money and give it to their enemies, preventing them from using those resources elsewhere), while Russians who do not support Putin will keep using your service. By making the announcement low-key enough/missable, you give Russians opposed to Putin a plausible out. "Oh, sorry, the sanctions/West took out my net for a while and I didn't see that they were dirty traitors, my bad." It might at least buy someone one extra chance/time to communicate.
If 80% of international companies throw out their Russian customers, then the Kremlin has to look fewer places to find where their domestic opposition is hiding things or talking. If I want to know what kind of credit card someone has, there are only a few options. If I want to know where someone bought a certain candy bar? That's a lot harder.
In short, I do not think you are achieving anything of value by shutting off civilians from your services. You are of course entitled to your opinion and feelings and nobody can force you to do what you disagree with, I just ask that you give it one more thought.
Yes, Russians will suffer.
Yes some of them tried to change things and paid dearly for that. I'm sorry for them.
But up until a week ago vast majority didn't care. Majority of Russians supported (and still support) annexation of Crimea. Well guess what, it's time to pay.
Nope. Don't trust russian propaganda. Even many of originally brainwashed "vatniks" have not been buying this shit for some years.
> But up until a week ago vast majority didn't care
Those who "care" tend to find "novichok" on their underwear. Terrible choice, no excuses, no nothing but fear of being repressed for a tweet. Me and my family will now pay for this fear with even more fear: of being impoverished, being outcasts, being locked behind the new iron curtain etc on top of even more repression.
I'm not looking for sympathy, nor want to ask for forgiveness for the orders I didn't give. Be safe my friends, even if you consider me an enemy
If I am going to do this, I will at least go through all the heavily used domains, and address your notices to those pro-war website owners.
Isolation and hate will be the end of humanity. Love is our only hope.
That being said:
- Did you block US citizens from using Namecheap when the US invaded other countries and killed civilians?
- Did you block the US from using Namecheap when the US left Afghanistan without evacuating the people there who are in constant danger of being murdered by the Taliban?
- Did you block Ukrainians when they stripped minorities of their basic human rights? There are minorities in Ukraine like the Hungarian minority that has nothing to do with this whole conflict and they were denied their right to use their language by the Ukrainians that you have labelled innocent.
- Did you consider blocking Ukraine for their sexist and fascist move to deny their own men the right to flee the country?
Please, don't be part of the problem, if you want to support innocent people: support charities and tell your politicians to pressure Ukraine into allowing any person to flee the country who does not feel like dying because of this foolish proxy war between the US and Russia.
With your actions you are just weakening the neutrality of the internet and doing nothing to weaken Putin, his oligarchs will just move to a different registrar.
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I’ll pray for your employees and for you. Namecheap deserves its potent reputation, and this tiny momentary backlash blip will fade almost instantly.
Your conscious will be clear forever. Слава Україні!
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This is not going to get resolved any time soon I do not think. As much damage as can be done to Russia now should be done.
And just to make it clear, I 100% agree with sanctions against Russia such as even shutting down things like Google Pay. Your action here is just dumb and not well thought.
Are you planning to ban USA for all of the wars that it is engaged in or is this a racist and hypocritical move?
>I cannot with good conscience continue to support the Russian regime in any way
So apparently now, when you contract a service, you should know that it could be terminated abruptly whenever one of its founders has some sort of trascendental realization. Did you have to call Denpok Singh to ponder that out?
You have a responsibility as a key part of the internets infrastructure that goes beyond your politicial viewpoints. The fact that you think your personal viewpoints should override these responsibilities just shows the unadulterated arrogance the world has come to expect from Americans.
Well done pushing Russian people further into the censorship, controlled hole and making this regimes control worse, whilst also betraying the standards of the open internet.
I've initiated transfer of my personal domains (not a Russian, out of choice), and will remove all work domains shortly. I'll also be advising non technical friends and clients to move away, due to untrustworthy business practices.
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And the effect is negative - I moved domains out of NameCheap to Russia simply because any other US or EU based registrar can do the same crazy thing and are not trusted.
So Putin's regime actually got more money out of this.
If you are no longer based in Russia and not doing business there, we'll consider that as well.
Where were you last Wednesday for instance, hours before the "pacification" took place? Not complaining perhaps, not doing anything.
Not doing anything
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I am trying to send my friends in Russia some info on what is going on in the world, without whatsapp i would not be able do that..
Also it goes both ways, for example there is no equivalent for genlib and sci-hub, there is just no substitute for these resources...
Did you, as some commenters say, decided to terminate services based on nationality rather than place of residency? If so, then it looks like a poorly planned decision. Overwhelming majority of Russians living abroad are against the war and Putin. In fact, many have left Russia because of its president.
Just wondering...
1. You terminate my service on a nationalistic basis. Ok, that's sad, but at least I can move.
2. You charge me for my domain for the period after service termination.
3. You tell "refund or redemption and you can't use your domain for a month or $70".
4. You tell "oopsie whooopsie, to our deepest regret, we have mistakenly cancelled the renewal".
Worst service ever.
That is despicable, assuming you are an American citizen.
Also how do you know you aren’t terminating some pro freedom sites, anyway? You disgust me.
https://www.theverge.com/2020/3/25/21194417/namecheap-corona...
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Btw, do you ban US, Saudi Arabia, UK etc too for their war crimes?
So you're forcing everyone with all these Russian .ru domains to buy new services at new registrars, which will generate way way more tax dollars for the Russian government.
Your logic is very flawed!
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May your ill-considered policy be rewarded with bankruptcy.
What if you were to charge $0.00 to existing Russian customers for their existing services ? Would there still be a tax levied on services ?
[1]:https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2022/02/28/world-war-...
Please help to stop the war, not to fuel it!
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Your dismissal of technical and non-technical complexities involved in moving over domains in such a time frame, brushing off of forged business relationships, have prompted me to end all business with you. You are not a serious provider. I am not Russia-based, and I'm moving elsewhere.
For example, I know the British Govt has greenlighted it for British Military personnel (SAS/SBS/Para's/etc) to resign their commission and go fight in Ukraine.
If they come back their commission will be restored as if nothing happened. Its legal and its been going on for decades.
So I would ask the question, what has backed Putin into a corner and then you might start opening your eyes. Is the NATO expansion the real reason for all this?
It's fine if you do, but this wording reads like cringy bandwagoning. I highly doubt you won't immediately revert all this and try courting those customers again if this war gets resolved but Putin somehow stays in power. Just go with a "sorry dudes but your president is doing bad stuff and we're making a temporary move here. Sorry" sort of statement.
I won't be doing business with Namecheap in the future
Will be moving over my stuff, and adding it to the blacklist
Btw, you always used hype to promote yourself, from the times of SOPA & Godaddy sh*t, when you got a lot of clients, including me.
Bye-bye, no more good will for you.
Please notice, there needs to be some sort of verification mechanism. The russians have already figured out that simply setting "Ukraine" in profile data a) works b) might suffice to bypass the upcoming restriction.
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Companies should have freedom to associate, and people can criticize them for it and/or switch to another service provider.
This is also why monopolies are such an underrated threat to society. They give too much power to a single, unelected person. Namecheap is in a crowded space, so I'm not worried about it in this case.
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How anyone would support this is beyond me. New world order virtue signalling at it fullest.
This war has a non-zero chance of becoming a nuclear war that ends all human life on Earth. If you don't care about it, you must not care about anything at all, including your own life.
There aren't that many people who would boycott a business that decides to stop offering services in Russia and there are even fewer who can watch Ukrainian bodies pile up without emotion, so I'm pretty sure Namecheap doesn't mind losing customers like you.
You said everything you had to. Wow.
ok. that's your problem.
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Please allow me to paint you a bigger picture. Putin didn't become a cruel crazy dictator just a week ago. He has always been like that and there is a reason why I joined the opposition movement more than 12 years ago. He was killing people, rigging elections, and stealing an enormous amount of money for himself and his friends through all these years. And through all these years no one cared about this except for the Russian opposition and people like me. He rigged the elections for his party and then made the police forces to brutally beat up the protesters and yet Russia still was a member of the G8 and all European leaders were meeting with him and treating him as an equal. He was destroying all independent media in the country and there were no sanctions nor protests overseas over that. The anchor on the state-owned TV-network was calling Ukraine "not a real state" long before the annexation of Crimea and yet that anchor was enjoying his villa in Italy. The state prosecutor of Russia was fabricating charges against opposition leaders while having an active residence permit in the Czech Republic and a penthouse in Prague. Even after the annexation of Crimea there were zero repercussions for Putin's oligarchs that own a ridiculous amount of real estate in London. In fact the entire world watched how the football club Chelsea was crowned champions. The club that is owned by Abramovich, one of the main Putin's cronies.
Through all these years there was zero help that the Russian opposition were able to get from any European government. There was no support from people of European countries. There were no protests in London after Nemtsov was murdered. There were no demonstrations in Berlin after Navalny was arrested. No people in Paris asked their government to not recognize the results of clearly rigged elections in Russia. And now after all those years the organized opposition movement in Russia is simply destroyed. Almost none of the independent media exist anymore. Nemtsov is dead, Navalny is in prison, Kasparov, Volkov, Sobol and many others had to flee the country. So why don't you want to punish the people from European countries that allowed this to happen? Why don't you terminate services with French citizens who didn't care, who didn't pressure their government to do anything about Putin through all those years and didn't elect anyone who was able to stand up to him? They're to blame for this war just as much as most of the Russian citizens and certainly more than I am.
I had a chance to emigrate from Russia into the US. I was working for a fin-tech startup from New York and they were asking me to move there. And the reason why I didn't do that is because I was inspired by Navalny and his stance that we shouldn't be afraid and we shouldn't just give up and leave the country to Putin and his friends. So I stayed because I didn't want to feel like a coward in emigration and I continued to do everything I could to fight the current regime in Russia. And now instead of providing any kind of support you're punishing me for this. I would really like to understand why do you think that I should be punished by you for this war. What did you do to prevent it that I didn't? Can I ask you what exactly did I do wrong and what specifically are you blaming me for? Was it wrong of me to simply be born in Russia? Is this something that I should've avoided somehow in your opinion? Or was it wrong of me not to run away when I had a chance and stay here to continue being in opposition to Putin?
Yes there were; it was outside the Russian embassy.
Having said that; I totally agree with your post and its one of the best I've read on this subject. It makes no sense to further isolate Russians. Any consumer of gas or electricity in most of Europe is part of this; as we are all financially supporting Putin, and even with these sanctions will continue to do so.
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Given the severity of the situation, I'm surprised that Namecheap has not opted for more drastic measures- for example, redirecting Russian web traffic. Simply transferring Russian businesses to other providers might be among the less-drastic options they considered.
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e42F1V3AOq4&t=150s
[2] https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/02/28/kharkiv-rock...
That's a war crime, right? I hope that the field commanders who carried out these orders are brought to justice.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convention_on_Cluster_Munition...
There are videos of Russian troops killing unarmed Ukrainian civilians online, war crimes are committed since day 1
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This was a decision made by someone who has heard horror stories and seen their cheery teammates turned into shells of themselves.
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I read interview with somebody from Russia yesterday, russian tracks getting their tires punctured in EU and get stuck because credit cards don't work anymore. Ships refuse to offload goods in Russian ports and drop them of "wherever in Europe". Russian companies can't buy/rent containers to bring goods to Russia.
It's a lot of collateral damage.
On the other side my brothers in law family in Kharkiv sleeps in hallway for past few days while outside blow up cluster munition delivered by MLRS systems https://twitter.com/YWNReporter/status/1498271572292952064?s...
Edit: just to add, I myself was born in Kyiv. Company where I work now has officies both in Ukraine (in one of hotter places) and in russia. I am equally trying to help my colleagues from both offices to GTFO. Collateral damage is unfortunate for private person but frankly not surprising. What is "surprising" it's that a big chunk of Russian population is surprised by it
There is also articles on official new sites (like RIA) that neo-nazis are executing Ukranian Military personal that doesn't want to fight.
Internet doesn't help. It's all about bubble...
As very unpleasant example, my father who lived most of his live in Kyiv but lives in Germany for past 15 years or so, is consuming only russian media. He is sure that Ukraine is ruled by neo-nazis from bunkers in Kyiv and whatever Russia is doing it's appropriate. This was his opinion after first day. Don't think that it changed
Many times the West was very hesitant on acting against russia's shenanigans (most notably Georgia and Crimea), because "it will hurt the common person and not those who are making decisions".
Now russia is in de facto conventional war with Ukraine and in information/business war with __all__ of the West. putin is out of ideas and freaking blasting cities with bombs like it's London 1940. The West is still not enganging russia in conventional war, due to nukes, but if it's war why one side needs to cry, run, starve and die, when other nation can sit by their propaganda tv and eat the kool-aid.
In this new information age it's the only possible resistance against the regime - Iron Curtain 2.0. The West cannot win informational war inside russia. Those who know english and know how to use internet are mostly young Moscovites, everyone else is sucked into propaganda, there's not enough critical mass. Propaganda is at the same level that Germans did not know or believe that there are concentration camps next door.
Either topple the regime, leave [0] or be living under Iron Curtain 2.0 stand in lines for bread with your money that are worthless.
I believe the West tried for the longest time not to play into this "russophobia" card. The sanctions definitely work together with russian propaganda ("look wht those evil gay nazi imperialist west are doing for simple russian people"). And for the longest time big players like DE, UK, FR did not understand putin, compared to how post-soviet countries like the Baltics and Poland warned. DE for the longest time that you can work with putin like any other liberal democratic leader. Now all this is in the trash and everyone is united against putin.
I am repeating myself - but I guess it's the only way to work against putin. Conventional war with other superpowers will most likely mean nukes, i.e. end of the human world.
[0] I bet many young people from Moscow or Peter will attempt to do this.
Probably some kind of fragmentation rocket fired from a grad[0].
[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BM-21_Grad
At least I don't see any rockets in any of the frames. And the explosions don't seem that big.
I really do sorry for your situation, I really hope that namecheap will work out with you. I do hope that EU and other countries will extend humanitarian visas to people that try to escape russia now before iron curtain will fall down. Yet, at this moment, it is what it is.
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https://twitter.com/Namecheap/status/1489485337885921284
Namecheap then reverted that decision when they got ratioed (with no tweets supporting their decision). I've never heard of these domain names and don't keep up with crypto, but it doesn't seem like they did much research before banning them.
I was thinking of switching everything to Namecheap just a week ago, because of a friend's recommendation based on their ease-of-use.
Because of this Twitter story, and the Russian suspension, I'm now glad I didn't. You can't cancel users' service, that they paid for, and give them only a week's notice. I'm not Russian but this volatile style of customer relationships totally destroys any trust I could have in them.
[Twitter User A]
[Twitter User B] [Namecheap.com] –––Wow! To be able to terminate someone's domain with a few tweets. This is absolutely insane! I have many domains with Namecheap. I might reconsider my domain provider after this.
Spare me the political and social grandstanding. I am not interested in your views on either topic.
> Spare me the political and social grandstanding. I am not interested in your views on either topic.
Like it or not everything is politcal
And you complain about moving domain names.
God I hate web developers...
https://www.namecheap.com/careers/ukraine/
On one hand we ask large companies to show more heart and humanity, and on the other hand we rail against them when they take a principled stand.
How anyone can expect a company to honour any corporate agreement in such an environment boggles my mind. Let alone company that sells domains and prides itself on being 'cheap'.
People and principles should come first, and money second. This is exactly the world we want to live in, right? Not some capitalist dystopia.
FWIW, I do not begrudge affected customers being angry, that seems very fair. I just also think this is a very reasonable course of action by Namecheap.
(This is one of those threads where we also thank dang for this service.)
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Will there be good Russians unfairly hurt as collateral damage? Yes.
But the Ukrainian civilians being gunned down in the streets and having their homes blown up are also being unfairly hurt. There is very little they can do to stop it, but they've been forced to drop everything and fight.
Like it or not, you're on one side of a war. It's to be expected that your life will be inconvenienced - so have lives on the other side. You can flee - nothing wrong with that - or you can protest, but you can't hope that you won't be impacted.
But what does anyone expect? All this international business depends on stable, peaceful relations. Russia broke that. The party will not go on.
We know you're not personally responsible for the invasion of Ukraine. And that's not any different than the embargoes during any prior armed conflict.
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The actual message is "you are our enemy and we don't want to provide services for you" - which is fair enough, but not palatable by current business standards, so they instead couch it in moralistic high-ground terms that they can selectively apply.
Besides all that, Namecheap is a private company and can do business with whomever they wish.
HN people are not normal. I generally ignore it on things like this, seems like the crazies come out in force.
It's worse than Slashdot was at its peak in the early 2000s when it was absolutely full of libertarians and anarcho-capitalists.
All other social media sites feel extremely progressive with no room for nuance.
However, unless you apply that same logic to the US, UK, and a host of other nations, you are being hypocritical. They have murdered so many civilians, including kids, that surely they deserve the same punishment.
Yet we both know we're not about to see that, and I think we know why.
I am not my government, and apart from starting a one-man revolution with a pretty obvious result, I'm doing everything I can to raise awareness, condemn actions of Russian government, and put an end to this. I've been doing so since 2011, back when I was a college student.
Namecheap -- this is a low move. While I do understand that your company has a lot of Ukrainian employees, all of which are in grave danger, you're not doing anyone a favor by making a shitty life of most Russian nationals even shittier.
That raises a question: how to find a domain registar without a lot of Ukrainian employees ?
According to the recent leak, Epik has them a lot as well.
Could we crowdsource such a list of registrars sorted by nationality of their employees to be prepared to the geo risks?
Other people are trying to move to Cloudflare -- but my banking cards are already not working, and I can't pay in USD for their services. Plus to that, even if somebody manages to move to Cloudflare or GoDaddy, there's no guarantee that they won't pull the plug as well.
People here are suggesting nic.ru, which I presume would have a pretty low risk of getting kicked off.
You might consider a list of registrars that do stuff you disagree with instead.