And so it should be. The Brexit should be as painful as possible for the UK. The more the UK is reminded of what they gave up, and what they will be missing, the better, as it positions them better for reentry.

Who cares about domain registration revenue? The only reason it isn't free is because of the administrative hassle of distributing frivolous domain registrations.

If EU citizens are confused about UK companies disappearing, maybe they'll search and be exposed to EU competitors, how could that be a bad thing?

> They lose domain registration revenue.

But in the other scenario, they now have to deal with support queries ("why can they have a .eu when I can't?"), possibly legal action ("why can they have a .eu when I can't?"), etc.

I was unaware that such thing happened, and I'm kind of surprised as it sounds like somewhat un-EU-ish to me, but I obviously had the wrong sense of what is EU-ish. And I wholeheartedly support that. I mean, it makes sense. If the domain policy of *.eu says that it is for *.eu-based people and organizations, and you leave the EU, why the fuck should you keep it?

If EU wanted to make more money on it, it would have made it available for everyone from the start. If it doesn't... well, it just means domain-selling is not the core EU-business. So it's exactly one of the 2: either Russian and Japanese companies should be allowed to own *.eu domain, or British ones shouldn't. And I don't honestly care which one is it. But it cannot be both at the same time.

So, no, it's not about hurting you, it's simply about the fact that the world doesn't revolve around you. As surprising as it may sound.

They maintain sovereignty though. That’s more important than domain registration revenue.

If I somehow owned tax.gov, and was running a tax prep service from it, I doubt the “I’m grandfathered” argument would fly.

It’s likely similar to lawyers.eu (I made that domain up), etc; people should be able to expect that to be an EU based service, not something overseas.

> They lose domain registration revenue.

I think only micronations have a significant revenue coming from tlds (e.g. Tuvalu)

.EU has a functional purpose, and to grandfather in those names would lead to disruption of the functional meaning.

Think of it as a UX reason rather than financial.

Sure it does:

1. The .eu TLD is supposed to signify that a business using it is part of the EU. That means EU consumers will know that EU regulations such as GDPR apply, they're unlikely to pay import/export taxes, etc. Allowing non-EU businesses to use it dilutes the purpose and value of the TLD.

2. The EU wants to avoid making freeloading look like a viable strategy. If Britain is able to leave the EU and still reap all the benefits of being an EU member, then what's the point of other nations staying in the EU? Domain names are obviously only a minor benefit of being in the EU but there's a reason this policy is being applied mostly across the board.

The idea is that (at least in theory) when someone has the .eu domain, then they are in EU.

There are many ways to skip it, but it blocks at least some.

That revenue is tiny compared to being able to say .eu domains for EU orgs and businesses.