96 ms·
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
by NamecheapCEO 5y ago
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. We have people on the ground in Ukraine being bombarded now non stop. I cannot with good conscience continue to support the Russian regime in any way, shape or form. 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. Free speech is one thing but this decision is more about a government that is committing war crimes against innocent people that we want nothing to do with.
- optimalsolver 5y agoI support your stance on this. Speaking as a Namecheap customer for several years now.
- rganeyev 5y agoWhy do you support this dump decision as it doesn’t help fighting the regime? 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?
- ymolodtsov 5y agoI think Namecheap discriminates based on the address, so if you live in the UK you can update it. Not easier for the rest of us.
- smashah 5y agoHow about you just stop collecting taxes in Russia instead of cutting them off? Either way, I'm noting you down for BDS. I suggest you also employ people in Palestine, Somalia, Yemen, Iraq, Myanmar, Kashmir, etc.
- ars 5y ago
- smashah 5y agoI mean, no it doesn't. But assuming it does for a moment, are you suggesting that the whole western world right now is advocating for the genocide of the Russian people?
- ars 5y agoNo I'm absolutely not suggesting that. The world wants Russia to leave Ukraine. BDS wants all the Jews gone from Israel which pretty much means they want them dead.
- glerk 5y agoThis is disgusting. You are punishing innocent people for the decisions of their government. Do you even realize that your behavior does not help your own cause? Do you realize that innocent Russian people banned from your platform will be encouraged to further hate the United States and support their government's war effort?
- ililSenior 5y agogood for you, moved both my domains over to cloudflare. 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.
- ililSenior 5y agoAnd yes, still no official announcement for this stuff. Your reputation Namecheap is 0 now.
- flapenguin 5y agoYou're not asking people to move, you're actively sabotaging your own clients. 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.
- throwawaaaay981 5y ago
- e-neko 5y ago20 years in prison if caught en route might be a good demotivator. And it's not like you can just catch a train there from Russia. Or a plane. (I'm not from or in the conflicting countries but aware of the new Russian law)
- analogdreams 5y agoMy domains will be moving from your service as a result.
- nest0r 5y agoI just moved mine to them as a result.
- jodrellblank 5y agoDoes your principled stand extend to never buying oil from BP after they dumped $14Bn shares in Rosneft, or is it just dogpiling here?
- Seismology 5y ago
- fmcoder 5y agoI'm moving our of Russia with my family. I was glad that my business was already outside of it. Now this domain stuff just added up to a pile of problems I must solve. 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.
- NamecheapCEO 5y agoSure but I don't want our company to be a factor in that contribution. I'm sure there are plenty of others out there willing to take the money and provide these services. If there are anti-government non profits out there, We'll consider keeping those up with us if you'd still want anything to do with us. If you are no longer based in Russia and not doing business there, we'll consider that as well.
- polack 5y ago
- exizt88 5y agoNo value was created out of them moving these domains. It's not like Namecheap is doing any good here. They're just posturing without actually helping anyone with this move or affecting real change.
- nic9999 5y agoWho will return our money?
- NamecheapCEO 5y agoYou'll get refunded on any time you have left on that service. (hosting, email)
- fmajid 5y agoYou may no longer be able to refund the money because of the sanctions.
- qwerty789 5y agoYou told me to transfer my domains before the 6th of March. But the transfer takes 5-7 days. Even if I initiate the transfer today or tomorrow it won't finish before the 6th. What will you do if the transfer doesn't get finalized before the 6th? Answer please!
- 52-6F-62 5y agoA DNS transfer doesn't take 5-7 days. It takes up to, but rarely, ~72 hours.
- busymom0 5y agoYou may make whatever decision you like as a company and so can I as a customer. I have about 9 domains with Namecheap and will be moving all of them elsewhere. You have list the trust of me as a customer because I can’t rely on you to do your one and only job. Btw, do you ban US, Saudi Arabia, UK etc too for their war crimes?
- asats 5y agoCould you clarify what exactly is a "user registered in Russia" that you are banning? I left the country (because of the government), and now have american billing info in my account, but I still got the termination email.
- NamecheapCEO 5y agoYou'll be fine, please contact us and we'll get you whitelisted. Point here if any confusion with our support team.
- yooga 5y agoThere are multiple sanctions, affecting government-related personalities and state companies. Why did you decide to make a ban for the total nation despite on their location, occupation and not same black list of government-related targets?
- NamecheapCEO 5y agoTax dollars fund that very government whether directly or indirectly. If you have a property this is anti regime or to that effect. We will consider white listng you.
- stanislavb 5y ago"Tax dollar"... I don't want to diverge the discussion, but that's the very same reason I've been avoiding "Made in China" products (as much as I can) for several years now.
- concinds 5y agoDoesn't every domain name service pay taxes? (including what these users will switch to?) I don't see how taxes are relevant.
- bombcar 5y agoI hope you also go forward and ban German domains as their gas payments are still funding Russia.
- contingencies 5y agoDear Namecheap CEO, 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
- toast0 5y agoI agree that this move seems too abrupt. Fulfilling current paid services and setting a reasonable deadline for final renewal (if payment is still available, which may be out of your control) and a reasonable maximum term length for any renewals would provide a lot more business continuity. 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.
- rmnc 5y agoI've paid in full for four domains just four days ago -- some two hours before I was thrown into a police bus. I may understand why you did this, but this is a low move, nonetheless. 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.
- Bluesboy 5y ago
- catwarrior 5y ago
- exizt88 5y ago> People that are getting angry need to point that at the cause, their own government. 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.
- NicoJuicy 5y agoI don't think they ( namecheap) has a choice, considering a lot of their employees live/lived in Ukraine.
- rootusrootus 5y ago> a lot of their employees live/lived in Ukraine I get the impression this is a lot of why they made this business decision. They're standing strongly by their employees.
- NicoJuicy 5y agoFor sake of perspective. Let's say Belgium was invaded and I had to to handle a support ticket from the same nationality as the agressor. I'm not sure if I would have the clarity to handle it with the "expected" care, if I just had to flee my home. While standing with your employees is one thing, I'm not sure if the same support quality can be achieved. The whole continent received nuke threats by now, making it worse.
- sam_lowry_ 5y agoDear fellow Belgian, Belgium already took part in the conflict, sending arms to Ukraine and troops to Romania to strengthen NATO presence along the border. Even if Belgium is not yet invaded nor bombed, you have to rethink your doing business with Russia, even though individual Russian citizens you deal with are agreeable people you always had pleasure working with. That's one of the worst parts of the war. It breaks relationships between millions of people while mere thousands die.
- awkdoiji123 5y agoI can't transfer domains to another domain registrar because I have to pay "Transfer Fee". I can't do this because the payment through my Russian cards does not go through. Now I need to go to the Russian domain registrar and pay them to transfer domains from NameCheap.
- Ekaros 5y agoI hope you take this same stance against USA and their drone strikes of civilians. I don't see how any good company can anyway work with those people either.
- yesbut 5y agoalso, we've preemptively invaded two countries (UN war crimes also) and our oligarchs get to keep their mansions and yachts and none of them will ever see the inside of a prison cell. we should absolutely condemn Putin, but I wish we'd also lock up our own war criminals.
- atlantas 5y agoShould Chinese residents be concerned?
- Ekaros 5y agoOr Israeli?
- humanistbot 5y agoOr USA? I'm remembering something about a fake vial of anthrax being held up at the UN by the US government to justify the illegal Iraq War.
- anonAndOn 5y agoThe current Vice President isn't an oil company executive so invading an OPEC member state isn't likely in the cards for at least another two years. Plus, there was that whole "I'm trying to kill your dad" thing.[0] [0]https://www.seattletimes.com/nation-world/bad-blood-saddam-and-bushes/ https://www.seattletimes.com/nation-world/bad-blood-saddam-a...
- NamecheapCEO 5y agoWe've never focused any of our business in China with intention. I didn't want our company to acquise and sell it's soul to do business there so we purposely avoided it all these years. We may have some customers there but not very many that I am aware of.
- hunterb123 5y agoYou focused your business in Russia with intention then? If so, it seems strange to give them focus, then take the service away because of what their government that they have no control over has done. If not, then why the inconsistent policies with Russian citizens vs Chinese citizens? Either way, I don't support involving citizens if it can be avoided. Oligarchs I could understand, similar to the state sanctions, but everyday citizens doesn't make sense. I do use you guys, but I'll be moving as I don't want my domain provider in any political events or targeting citizens. It's a shame because your bitcoin support was nice. Russian developers are already having bank account issues, now you spring this on them. It's really not helping the situation. They have nothing to do with these events. You're disconnecting them from the world further.
- ainar-g 5y ago> We haven't blocked the domains, we are asking people to move. 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?
- rmnc 5y ago> 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. 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.
- grey-area 5y agoWouldn't that mean those people couldn't pay namecheap anyway?
- codegeek 5y agoI am an American and lucky not to have anything in Russia but as a namecheap customer, I urge you to please be patient with people and give them time to move. I understand the decision you made and it is your right to do so but please do not block someone just because they couldn't do it by a certain date. I am sure you know but empathy is really needed right now. Your March 6 deadline worries me.
- Seismology 5y agoIt would be rightful, if only Namecheap wouldn't deny me reimbursement for their move. =( They're just getting away with the money.
- NamecheapCEO 5y agoWe'll definitely consider extending the deadline if it is causing problems.
- Rebelgecko 5y agoHow will you determine if it's causing problems, and at what point in the next 5 days will you potentially start those considerations?
- NamecheapCEO 5y agoWe'll extend it for three weeks and if someone needs more time, I'll ask our support to make exceptions.
- dc2k08 5y ago
- imwillofficial 5y ago
- Matheus28 5y agoFYI "ensure" is misspelled as "insure" on the banner that shows on every page.
- xanaxagoras 5y ago> People that are getting angry need to point that at the cause, their own government. 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"?
- michaelmrose 5y ago
- xanaxagoras 5y agoThe CEO came here to justify his actions by referring to specific violations of his personal values - a spurious claim in my opinion. Values are applied consistently, and you can bet there will be no action taken against western governments that are guilty of the same things that allegedly motivated Namecheap to do this. Instead the motivation is emotional and political, and it is unreasonable to remove services from paying customers because you're upset. I will never rely on a company that behaves like this.
- NamecheapCEO 5y agoWe aren't removing services, we are asking people to find another provider. There are thousands out there. We aren't a monopoly here.
- xanaxagoras 5y agoSo given that context - that you're not removing services - what is the meaning of the "whitelist" you've mentioned in several other comments? What are those users being whitelisted from?
- anonymoushn 5y agoIf you pay for some service for a year and the provider stops providing it after 1 month, would you agree that the provider has not removed the service?
- hereforphone 5y agoWould you give me a list of "wrong" things I shouldn't do, or "wrong" places I shouldn't live, in order to not have my service terminated in the future? I live in Turkey sometimes. Am I in danger of losing my Namecheap account if Erdoğan (the dictator) does something even more crazy than usual, in the future?
- jacquesm 5y agoOf course you are. Any service provider will have the power to deny you further service. Businesses are going under because they were exposed to sanctions due to trading mostly in Russian goods. They can't really do much about that either.
- Seismology 5y agoThere would be a point in your words, if only Namecheap wouldn't refuse to reimburse me money for terminated service!
- ALittleLight 5y agoIt seems the answer is clearly Yes, you are in danger of losing your account if Erdogan does something crazy. I'm confused why you would ask this question. Russians are being banned for the crazy actions of Putin, why wouldn't Turks be if their country engaged in similar actions.
- postsantum 5y agoYou are only confused because you take it for granted that countries of the first world can do whatever they want and don't comprehend that people in other countries take it as double standards
- markdown 5y agoYup. Americans weren't banned when they warred on Iraq and Afghanistan and killed a million people over some dude in a cave. It's a joke!
- sandstrom 5y agoAre you sure this will help your objective? 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)
- michaelmrose 5y agoTampering with your customers data would destroy confidence in their business and might actually be a violation of the law.
- sandstrom 5y agoProbably, but I'm not talking about legality here. In war people do a lot of illegal things. I'm just saying, banning this people are probably not having the desired effect. Showing an alternative point of view would be more effective. That said, I don't think this is the right crowd. My guess is that 90% of them are already heavily against Putin.
- codedokode 5y ago> 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. You should not believe them. They might be just lying.
- awb 5y ago> 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. 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.
- bakugo 5y agoEverything about this screams immaturity. You didn't think about this, how it would affect others, whether or not it would actually improve anything for anyone, etc. This doesn't affect the Russian government in any way whatsoever. You are not making a difference, not a positive one anyway. You're acting purely based on spite, attacking mostly innocent people in any way you can purely because they are living under a government you disagree with, not necessarily by choice. I don't know what led you to believe that russian citizens can just wake up one day and decide to kick out the government, but I am sorry to say that this is not true. 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.
- doggydog123 5y agoBest comment so far. The mail ia indeed immature and the actions are unproductive.
- kristofferR 5y ago> I don't know what led you to believe that russian citizens can just wake up one day and decide to kick out the government, but I am sorry to say that this is not true. 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.
- Al-Khwarizmi 5y agoA great motivator? What a way to misunderstand basic human psychology. Sanctions just give dictators more excuses to blame everything on external enemies. I honestly don't understand how anyone thinks they can work.
- kristofferR 5y agoWhat other alternative reaction to the invasion would you suggest?
- nickff 5y ago>"There are plenty of other choices out there when it comes to infrastructure services so this isn't "deplatforming"." 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.
- michaelmrose 5y agoWell actually lets take youtube. Being removed from youtube doesn't keep you from being heard at all by people willing to directly seek you out but it does directly keep your content being organically exposed to youtube users potentially greatly decreasing your actual exposure. 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.
- gog 5y agoOr if you get kicked out from the service you paid upfront for and not being able to pay the other registrars because outside payments are blocked.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- symbix 5y agoI get that, and you're totally entitled to do this. And you're probably right that ends justify the means. And, probably, total damage will be worth it. But, in my insignificant personal case, I will be busy moving domains and paying for transfers instead of doing what I've been doing and spending money on what I've been spending it for the last 5 days, helping people detained and/or arrested for participating in anti-war protests (as a volunteer, see https://ovdinfo.org/ https://ovdinfo.org/). 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.
- NamecheapCEO 5y agoContact us, we'll make exceptions in cases like this. Thanks for what you are doing.
- dools 5y agoHey I saw a post on a local FB group today from an Aussie company who worked with a Russian dev years ago and had their contact details on one of 50 domains, and they're being asked to move everything. They said support is not responsive, any way you can be more discriminating about the level of Russian involvement that will trigger a suspension? I will post a link to your statement here for them.
- 5y ago
- ccn0p 5y agoJust to be clear, this is definitionally "deplatforming". Having "plenty of other choices" doesn't change that. There are always other choices.
- NamecheapCEO 5y agoBS no shoes, no shirt, no service. Ever heard about that? If we were a monopoly, fine, there are plenty of other services out there. Over 1000 registrars including several in Russia.
- jacquesm 5y ago> Over 1000 registrars including several in Russia. For now. That could well change though.
- mynameisvlad 5y agoAnd why should that be Namecheap's problem, exactly?
- jacquesm 5y agoIt was just an observation, obviously that's not Namecheap's problem.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- _-david-_ 5y agoRefusing a service from the get go is different than pulling the rug out from your existing customers. Why not just stop new Russian domains and require people transfer their domains when they expire?
- dumpsterdiver 5y agoWhile I don't have an opinion about your decision to terminate service to Russia (I'm not Russian, I'm not a customer, and I can see how having such a heavy presence in Ukraine could influence the decision), a lot of your comments in this thread directed toward previous customers are very dismissive. I feel like you could have taken the high ground here simply by reining in your attitude.
- nightski 5y agoI'll be migrating my small account of about 15 domains away from Namecheap due to this. I have Russian friends that I respect and hate to see negative action taken against them due to the unfortunate and despicable actions of their government.
- tomp 5y ago
- option 5y agoThank you!
- jakedata 5y agoPerhaps this will cut down on the fraudulent domain names being used to impersonate real companies that invariably end up being hosted on Namecheap? Support has stopped answering my tickets even when I provide all the material requested in your abuse policy. Stop offering 30 day free domain registrations and 50% of the fraud domains would go away in 31 days. Really, please make it stop.
- sandstrom 5y agoLook at European and US sanctions, they're way more clever about it: - 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)
- sandstrom 5y agoBy all means, promote the Ukraine point of view (I support them 100%). For example, put up links to the speech Zelenskyy did in Russian, aimed at the Russian people. 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.
- wetpaws 5y agoThey don't care about the impact or people, they just want to virtue signal.
- mopsi 5y ago> Look at European and US sanctions, they're way more clever about it: 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.
- User23 5y agoI’m an American. My government is also prone to boneheaded invasions of other sovereign countries. Does this mean I should save myself the potential future hassle and find another provider too?
- smt88 5y agoIf companies banned Americans over the invasion of Iraq, I would have wholeheartedly supported it, especially if the majority of that company's employees were Iraqis. 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.
- Seismology 5y ago
- gjs278 5y ago
- Mondialisation 5y ago> but ultimately even those tax dollars they may generate go to the regime 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?
- jzc 5y ago
- dang 5y agoWe've banned this account for repeatedly making this flamewar hellishly worse. You can't do that here, regardless of how right you are or feel you are. Creating accounts to break HN's rules like this will get your main account banned as well, so please don't. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- michaelmrose 5y agoThe logical line would be non combatants dying avoidable deaths. For example if Russia were so impoverished that people were starving to death we should try to feed them. It is indeed absolutely OK economically punish a country in order to inspire them to vote against leaders who are murdering their neighbors.
- goldsteinq 5y agoVote against leaders? Do you understand how autocracy works? The elections are rigged and to be allowed to even participate you need to be compliant with the regime. How about punishing Council of Europe so they would enforce their own decision to free Navalny, so we can vote for him?
- 230149dsad232jj 5y agoI know you're getting a ton of negative reactions here, which is always what happens when a protest or sanction inconveniences someone. 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.
- throwaway5848 5y ago
- Aeolun 5y ago> which is always what happens when a protest or sanction inconveniences someone 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.
- dccoolgai 5y agoI love Russian people and culture - to the point that I even learned how to read Cyrillic (which I've unfortunately had a lot of practice at in the last few days). So I don't want to see Russians get hurt, but think about it this way: What would you want Germans to do in the 1930s? What if they said "it rubs me the wrong way when people say I should do more to stop the NSDAP"? I sympathize, but when you're a piece of a system that threatens the entire world, it rings a little hollow to say "what am I supposed to do?". I can't believe the people that captured the largest landmass on the planet under their control are really all that helpless. Russian Serfdom was abolished in the 1800s. So if you, or a 1930s German is asking "what am I supposed to do?" the answer is "everything". And I'll jump in front of the "But the U.S. is bad, too. Why don't you stop what you're doing and overthrow the U.S.?": You can't point to anything since the bombing of Dresden/Nagasaki where the U.S. military was intentionally inflicting mass civilian casualties with advanced weaponry the way Russia is in Ukraine right now. Not Iraq, Afghanistan, Kosovo, etc. 0 land annexed since WW2, 0 threats against our neighbors, even though we have the most powerful military on earth. Even under Trump: 0 wars started, despite his belligerence. And Dresden/Nagasaki happened under duress. Ukraine posed no threat to Russia in any way, shape or form.
- ivan_gammel 5y agoYou are doing really dumb and hateful thing. The people that will be affected by this are usually the same who sponsor or even are the opposition. They were fighting Putin long before the war started and long before you started caring about it. It’s the same as to stop selling paper to members of White Rose resistance group [1], because they were Germans. A clear signal that risking your freedom or life does not worth it, because the world hates you no matter what you do. Russian people will pay very high price without your involvement: by not being humane, you just show them that Putin was right and West is against them. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Rose https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Rose
- awb 5y ago> Putin was right and West is against them. 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.
- jimmydorry 5y agoMight as well drop a nuke or two then? Extreme actions have a proven track record, after all. It would certainly cause the government to reconsider, civilian casualties be damned.
- jimmydorry 5y agoI guess the sarcasm wasn't clear enough. Too late to edit now.
- dilyevsky 5y ago> The West wasn’t against the people, they were against the ruling parties and the infrastructure/policies that supported it. Ah yea if we exclude things like https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internment_of_Japanese_Americans https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internment_of_Japanese_Ameri... . If you’d like some ideas how about you don’t repeat mistakes like this once again. All you’re doing is strengthening putins demagoguery
- chrismsimpson 5y agoThank you. I haven't used Namecheap in the past, but I will consider it in the future. I hope more western companies that care about the rule of law follow suit.
- Seismology 5y ago
- oversocialized 5y ago
- dang 5y agoWe've banned this account for repeatedly breaking the site guidelines. If you don't want to be banned, you're welcome to email hn@ycombinator.com and give us reason to believe that you'll follow the rules in the future. They're here: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.
- hysan 5y agoAs a long time Namecheap user, I support your decision. 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.
- yeputons 5y ago> To everyone complaining, have you first tried to contact support and explained your situation? 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.
- Aeolun 5y agoBesides, would you really want to stay after something like this?
- oceanplexian 5y agoMaybe as an individual I could see supporting them, but as someone who works in the corporate world and actually needs to rely on services like this, I wouldn’t risk doing business with a company that might change their TOS at the drop of a hat because of the political views of their CEO or some geopolitical event.
- rayditutto 5y ago"at the drop of a hat" - I think you mean "at the drop of a bomb"
- dragonwriter 5y ago> I wouldn’t risk doing business with a company that might change their TOS at the drop of a hat because of the political views of their CEO or some geopolitical event. So, BP, Royal Dutch Shell, Delta Airlines or any of the other myriad of businesses, large and small, that have taken action affecting business partners or customers without or in advance of government mandates? Well, I mean, good for you that you will restrict your business to such a small pool of suppliers/partners, but good luck competing with those that don't.
- achikin 5y agoSo, you are trying to make Russian people’s life even worse nevertheless you understand that they have nothing to do with the situation? How are you better than Russian government?
- bandyaboot 5y agoHe’s not murdering people?
- achikin 5y agoI'm not murdering people too.
- bandyaboot 5y agoThe question was “how is he better than the Russian government”. Not, “How is he better than me”.
- hashimotonomora 5y agoAre you following a law or just arbitrarily and unilaterally deciding to do this? I am not Russian myself but I expect a domain name provider to be extremely neutral, unopinionated, and stable. Namecheap is showing to be neither so it can’t be trusted for important domains.
- ordiel 5y agoThanks for clarifying why not to use your service
- cousin_it 5y ago> tax dollars 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.
- droptablemain 5y agoHow do you get off punishing normal people for the supposed crimes of their government? Are you going to go back and retroactively ban U.S. users for the many war crimes various regimes have committed over the years? Are you from the U.S.? Maybe you should just resign -- no point in you having a "platform" as an executive when your government has committed such atrocities around the world.
- viraptor 5y ago
- droptablemain 5y agoYou can slam "whataboutism" all you want, but it successfully points out hypocrisy, double-standards and opportunism.
- awb 5y agoThe point is that no two situations are exactly the same. And whataboutism dodges the details. Maybe the CEO’s stance is: I won’t do business with a country that annexes another non-aggressive country through violence.
- markdown 5y ago... while I'm alive. Otherwise the Kingdom of Hawaii might have something to say.
- zamalek 5y ago"What about history?"
- awb 5y agoThe Hawaiian islands were individual tribes until they were subjugated in a bloody war, with weapons and assistance from Americans: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kamehameha_I#Unification_of_the_islands https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kamehameha_I#Unification_of_... That’s why it’s possible to play “what about” all day long and not get very far. It’s almost always apples and oranges. Ukraine isn’t Iraq or any other US military action. It doesn’t mean the US actions were good. It’s just too dissimilar to be an apples to apples comparison. The closest apple I can think of is another European authoritarian leader, with bold threatening rhetoric and a strong nationalist identity who felt humiliated and threatened and decided to purge his opposition while promising other leaders he wouldn’t invade his neighbors before quickly annexing much weaker, non-aggressive neighboring countries that he thought lacked sufficient cultural and geographical distinction or were part of his country’s historical borders. And a lot of people had regrets about not pushing back sooner on that guy and incorrectly trusting that he would stop after the first country or two.
- eindiran 5y agoI have been a (US, before you accuse me of being Russian like you have done elsewhere in the thread) Namecheap customer for years, and have urged at least a dozen others to use your service. I won't be doing that in the future, your responses in this thread have killed any trust and goodwill I had for your service.
- aardshark 5y agoI find this action from Namecheap really lazy virtue signalling and your justifications to be hypocritical, for reasons pointed out elsewhere in this thread. 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.
- orangetuba 5y agoSomeone should make a list of websites and services that ban users based on ethnicity/nationality. I for one, will stay away from services like namecheap (I am neither Russian nor Ukranian), simply because this doesn't help anyone, but will be used as justification by the pro-Putin guys.
- Mezzie 5y agoI'm curious what it's going to look like 40-60 years from now then the US finally fractures. All the Americans in here who think this could never be our problem are 100% wrong.
- MaysonL 5y agoJust reading an interesting SF novel (Ken Macleod's Beyond the Hallowed Sky) where one of the geopolitical plot points is that America has returned to democracy (although still having a substantial crazy demographic).
- Mezzie 5y agoOh, that looks interesting. Space operas aren't normally my thing, but I'm a sucker for multiple POVs/story threads. (I'm just on HN for the book recs. I'm using you all. Sorry.) As somebody who works in politics, I'd say that everywhere has a substantial crazy demographic and one of the fundamental problems any governing system has to address is what to do with them. (And of course, that's assuming they can all agree on which demo are the crazy ones...)
- hell69 5y ago
- mustardo 5y ago
- dang 5y agoI'm sure you have very legitimate reasons for feeling that way. Even so, you can't post like this to HN, regardless of who you're attacking and regardless of how strongly you feel. We ban accounts that do this, so please don't do it again. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- oi23joi 5y agoNamecheap has just ruined its reputation. Giving almost no time for domain transfer is insane. I will avoid using your services at any cost.
- nthngtshr 5y ago> I cannot with good conscience continue to support the Russian regime in any way, shape or form. People that are getting angry need to point that at the cause, their own government 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 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21437334
- chrononaut 5y ago> 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. 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/ https://www.linkedin.com/company/namecheap-inc/people/
- totony 5y ago>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. From parent: >I sympathize with people that are not pro regime but ultimately even those tax dollars they may generate go to the regime.
- butwhywhyoh 5y agoI don't support the Russian invasion, I'm not Russian, and all the other caveats that put me on the "right" side of this. 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.
- ilrwbwrkhv 5y agoAbsolutely. This sort of virtue signalling should be frowned upon. I have over a 100 domains in namecheap which is a drop in a bucket I'm sure for them but I'll be moving them to porkbun.
- samstave 5y agoSame.
- mdyn 5y agoThank you for your support!
- mdyn 5y agoThank you for your position and for your support!
- zxcvbn4038 5y agoGoDaddy's CEO ought to send you a fruit basket or something, you just made salesmen of the year!
- qwerty789 5y agoWhy are you giving an unrealistic deadline to transfer the domains away until the 6th if domain transfers take 5-7 days. Will you stop the transfers in the process when the 6th of March comes?
- colanderman 5y agoWhy not just block renewals and new registrations? Do you have to pay taxes to Russia on .ru registrations at other times?
- Seismology 5y agoI guess it's just hate and discrimination of Slavs. Wouldn't believe his lies.
- anonymoushn 5y agoyou're providing 5 days to change registrars and 0 days to change hosts to people who are currently waiting in line for hours at banks to attempt to access their own funds. 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.
- cure 5y ago> I'm a US citizen, so roughly half of my gross income goes to support US war crimes That's unlikely, cf. https://www.cbpp.org/research/federal-budget/where-do-our-federal-tax-dollars-go https://www.cbpp.org/research/federal-budget/where-do-our-fe....
- throwaway5848 5y agoNot Russian (I'm from Argentina), but I'll move all of my domains right away. This is absolutely nuts. I do not care about this war at all, but more importantly, I won't be keeping my domains in a registrar that arbitrarily cuts down on customers from being from a particular country. How anyone would support this is beyond me. New world order virtue signalling at it fullest.
- smt88 5y ago> I do not care about this war at all 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.
- tekbog 5y ago> I do not care about this war at all You said everything you had to. Wow.
- attentive 5y ago
- throwaway5848 5y agoI'm not sure what you're seeing since everything I've seen everywhere (even in my fucking domain registrar!) is a pro-Ukraine/anti-Russia narrative pushed everywhere. Everywhere. So if there's disinformation, it follows that it's from Western media. As I've said, I'm not russian.
- kome 5y ago> I do not care about this war at all ok. that's your problem.
- crossroadsguy 5y agoI am from neither country but I’m going to move my secondary domain away from namecheap. What you’re doing is not only immature and unfair, it’s simply absurd and stupid. You’re coming across as an edgy and impatient person trying to score some desperate goodwill brownie points. 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.
- LaughingAtClown 5y ago
- memorysafety 5y agoHey @NamecheapCEO, Ukrainian here. Thanks a lot! 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.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- Beltalowda 5y agoDonating all income from Russian users to the Ukrainian war efforts or refugee relief efforts would have seemed like a much more satisfying (and effective!) way to go about this.
- throwaway378037 5y agoThis is the path my company has chosen.
- serverlessmania 5y agoI genuinely hope this is a joke, REALLY....
- fsociety999 5y agoWhy don’t you cut off United States citizens while you are at it? The regime that has probably done more damage and caused more instability to the world than any other country. The U.S. uses the entire world as their playground couping any Government that disagrees with them or refuses to bend to their demands and bombing their citizens and civilians. What about the atrocities and war crimes committed in Iraq and Afghanistan? Syria? Libya? Yemen? Etc. 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.
- otterley 5y agoPlease kindly check your whataboutism at the door. It's not HN-caliber discussion.
- eindiran 5y agoOP's comment is not whataboutism. It's simply pointing out that this is not the principled stand it is masquerading as. If this action was strictly about countries waging unprovoked wars heavily laden with war crimes, the US would be on the chopping block from NC's perspective. That we were not (nor ever will be) is a testament to the fact that the US is too lucrative a market for them to lose and that this is not principled whatsoever.
- otterley 5y agoAttacking a position solely because it is inconsistent is the definition of whataboutism. (And perfect consistency is the enemy of improving short-term outcomes.)
- andre007 5y agoHello. Really sorry to hear but I understand your decision. Please let me know if my case is eligible. I've have Ukrainian but frankly the Russian passport holder. I've have not been living in Russia for over 4 years, I'm not a resident or tax payer.The 37 year-like situation in Russia was one of the reasons of immigration and all the domains are not even closely related to Russia.I'm currently in another country in the process of obtaining a citizenship. Already changed all the details including the phone to my new address. Will you please whitelist me?
- Seismology 5y agoWhen a citizen becomes _passport holder_.
- discordance 5y agoAll of my Russian friends are decent people who are just trying to get by. They have been suffering under Putin’s regime for many years, as well as international sanctions that have plagued their livelihoods. Many left Russia years ago but they are still being persecuted because of where they were born. Segregation is not the answer.
- monday_ 5y agoPathetic. 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.
- jacquesm 5y ago
- tasha0663 5y ago> Only Russia (and collectively, Russians) can stop it. And how do you propose they do this? What are you suggesting?
- jacquesm 5y agoThe example that comes to mind is Solidarity, but with the kind of popularity that Putin inexplicably still has that may not be a viable option, and it would have to be very carefully planned and coordinated, going off half-cocked will just get lots of people shot in the streets, setting this up will take a lot of time. Alternatively, some of the remaining bigshots may decide to throw Putin under the bus (or, preferably, a tank).
- throwawayukr432 5y agoJust thinking out loud about this... 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.
- Mezzie 5y agoI think that the best idea, depending on what services you provide (since that matters in terms of tactics and communication), would be to take the money and donate it all to the Ukrainian war efforts (Option 2). Make an announcement to that effect, but a very, very low key one. 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.
- foolfoolz 5y agoi’ve been a namecheap customer for a long time (10+ years). i do not think you are making the right choice. you are punishing the wrong people. you are sending a message that selecting namecheap isn’t just choosing a hosting platform but also a making political alignments. you say you’re doing this because you want nothing to do with the war, but by making this change you are involving yourself even more with the war
- throwoutway 5y agoBefore I respond to you about domain names, is there anything we can do to help your team's families get out? Do you have a fund? Are there refugee organizations you're in contact with? ------ > 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.
- cato_the_elder 5y ago> There are plenty of other choices out there when it comes to infrastructure services so this isn't "deplatforming". 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.
- tasha0663 5y ago> People that are getting angry need to point that at the cause, their own government. 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.
- SirensOfTitan 5y agoThis is gross. People aren't their governments, did you cancel US domain registrations when the US government invaded Iraq?
- slim109ya 5y agoThis feels kind of shallow. Much like the BLM support thing, where they would attach a slogan to their website. "Let's get some social points" is what this amounts to. 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.
- yesbut 5y agoits called virtue signalling. and it is indeed very shallow. this is going to cost them a handful of customers (that will be individually inconvenienced), but they'll get to launder/profit off this move of putting their foot down towards evil Putin. "That will teach him who's who!"
- ghostoftiber 5y agoSo you're totally cool with the AZOV Battalion, right? They're the heroes? You're definitely OK with not doing this to Ukraine?
- CodeWriter23 5y agoIt is deplatforming. And I’ll be transferring my domains elsewhere. US Citizen.
- desireco42 5y agoI get you are upset over what is happening, but this is just not the way to do it, nor promotes free speech. 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.
- desireco42 5y agoIn other news, it is really easy to transfer domains, it just cost a little bit. Those in Russia and in that region might be a problem with blocked credit cards and such.
- gre 5y agoThanks for the heads up, I did not know Namecheap had such terrible politics. No, I do not support Russia. I transferred my three domains to Cloudflare. Cheers.
- attentive 5y agoYou're so quick. Yet people here complain it takes too long... figures. You're also betting on not having to transfer again soon, it seems.
- a1445c8b 5y ago> You're so quick. Yet people here complain it takes too long It probably helps that they’re not in a country that’s currently facing sanctions thus able to quickly make financial transactions that will support the transfer of their domain. I could be wrong though.
- gre 5y agoI'm in the US, and my websites are a hobby. It could take any amount of time if I updated my address before transferring (don't do this, you are locked out for 60 days!) or if Namecheap made me wait five days, which seems within their right. The internet is not supposed to choose sides or abandon people so thoughtlessly. I'm lucky it doesn't matter much in my case and wanted to make a statement.
- aritmo 5y agoIt's almost seven years since Saudi Arabia started the war against Yemen [1] They are still attacking Yemen and they commit atrocities. Could you please consider a Saudi Arabia Service Termination? 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saudi_Arabian%E2%80%93led_intervention_in_Yemen https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saudi_Arabian%E2%80%93led_inte...
- lettergram 5y agoI don't support much of what every government does. I actively oppose my own government where I can (not Russian though). Holding the serfs responsible is absolutely immoral. Further, your employees and investors can be hurt (not sure they will in this case). 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.
- wimpypistol 5y agoIt really sucks that you'd do this.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- alessivs 5y agoYou could have spared us the affronting lack of tact in purporting to be both litigant and judge in an ongoing conflict, the infantile role-playing as a war tribunal, and the omission of your conflict of interest in your diatribe (part of your staff is Ukrainian). 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.
- yakorevivan 5y ago
- DrBoring 5y agoHow are the Namecheap services taxed in Russia ? 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 ?
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- Ansil849 5y ago> We have people on the ground in Ukraine being bombarded now non stop. I cannot with good conscience continue to support the Russian regime in any way, shape or form. 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?
- alessivs 5y agoThey also fail to acknowledge the thousands deaths on both sides since 2014 until today, since the coup and introduction of Maidan snipers to kill the innocent. To name a concrete example, you can freely consult the magnitude of the casualties related to the Donbas-related conflict alone (some 13,000-14,000 lives since April 2014). Part of the staff is Ukrainian...they ought to know. 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?
- chrononaut 5y agoNamecheap employs 834 Ukrainians, about 73% of their total workforce. The families of their employees are probably dying. Ukraine and Russia are in a state of war. It's irrelevant what previously occurred by other governments.
- frozencell 5y agoDid they hire them because salary is much less expansive than in the US?
- chrononaut 5y agoI don't know the answer to that question, but does that no longer make them human and the leader of the organization of which they are employed should not be emphatic to their situation?
- ipaddr 5y agoI'm considering moving my domains to protest this decision. 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.
- zamalek 5y agoThere's a lot of criticism going your way for this, but I support your decision. This ventures down the path of "what difference does it make if I'm the only one making a stand." Apathy is the downfall of the collective. 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.
- namecheap_shit 5y ago
- zawaideh 5y agoDo Israel next. The tax dollars support Apartheid and war crimes.
- moralestapia 5y agoWhat a trashy move, seriously. >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?
- SkyMarshal 5y agoJust want to voice support for what you’re doing. Just today there was an excellent article on Politico [1] explaining that one critical component of the world’s response to Russia must be for Western corporations to cease all business with Russia. That income is what has enabled Russia to build up enough of a war chest to do this. You guys are ahead of the curve. [1]:https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2022/02/28/world-war-iii-already-there-00012340 https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2022/02/28/world-war-...
- kaziboxa 5y agoDont you think that people that choose abroad registrar, choosed it not for low price (which is actually not low at all)? Dont you think that they have some other specific motivation "to be abroad"?
- mempko 5y ago
- friedturkey 5y agoWill you also block countries that use their tax dollars to arrest and kill LGBT people? Or countries that are involved in other unjust wars? 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.
- smusamashah 5y ago> committing war crimes against innocent people 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.
- keithnz 5y agoAs a namecheap customer (or addict to registering names for things I may do in the future.... ) I appreciate this, and appreciate the flexibility for those with special circumstances. While this is a headache for innocent Russian bystanders caught up in this war, the response by the majority of the world needs to be overwhelming.
- 4oo4 5y agoSelective collective punishment is a really bad way to treat customers. 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.
- dshpala 5y agoI'm with you. I hope more companies follow this. 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.
- oleg_antonyan 5y ago> Majority of Russians supported (and still support) annexation of Crimea 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
- zapataband1 5y agoIraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Iraq Again, Yemen, Vietnam, Bolivia. The list goes on. If you will not support Russia's imperialism, how will your conscience hold against US Imperialism?
- LaughingAtClown 5y ago
- aantix 5y agoDidn't a big migration to the Namecheap service occur a decade ago because GoDaddy unilaterally suspended a domain without recourse?
- tlear 5y agoThere is a lot of talk of innocent people. Yes they are. But this is war. As Kharkiv is getting plastered by Uragan as we speak, to break down the territorial defence units and creating a lot of collateral. So killing businesses and destroying livelihood of Russia will help in the long term war. 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.
- tomcam 5y ago“Free speech is one thing but…” 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.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- aftbit 5y ago>There are plenty of other choices out there when it comes to infrastructure services so this isn't "deplatforming". 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?
- ilrwbwrkhv 5y agoIf only we Americans had to face the brunt of our invasions and destruction of so many countries in the middle East and other places. Maybe one day we will.
- lolwtfyouclown 5y ago
- TedShiller 5y agoThis is wrong. While I support all of the sanctions against Russia on a national level, individual companies should not be able to make such decisions based simply on politics. 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.
- gcj 5y agoAre you guys doing the same to US users due to their country's many war crimes?
- mkulgin 5y ago
- s9w 5y ago
- rooshdi 5y agoWhy freeze what's free?
- pinephoneguy 5y agoAs someone involved in internet infrastructure I find this particularly upsetting. We should be seeking to connect people even in the worst places to shine light on the problems, not cut them off from the world.
- DHK 5y agoA lot of Russian residents have a relatives in Ukraine. In this terrifying moment you've just added one more headache for them.
- godmode2019 5y agoRussia is a petrostate all of Europe is supporting the Russian side financially. 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-energy-firms-rush-to-buy-russian-gas-even-after-attack https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-02-24/european-...
- throwaway33f 5y ago
- chj 5y agoI am not Russian. But this kind of blanket banning prompts me to migrate away as well. 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.
- traviswt 5y agoYou are absolutely doing the right thing! Ignore the hate here. People in the comfortable tech world have trouble with uncomfortable truths, and Russians right now are facing a harsh uncomfortable truth: citizens are collectively responsible for their leaders. 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!
- reactor 5y agoAs much as any other sane person, I don't support any kind of war or invasion, but this is knee jerk reaction from your side and you are punishing wrong customers, which is not going to bode well with them. Your customers are civilians, what do they have to do with these wars? I'm thanking myself now that I have already moved my domains to CF. I don't want to be held accountable for any nonsense things that my Gov/leaders got themselves into.
- AlexBarabash 5y agoI became a political activist back in college. I participated in almost all anti-government demonstrations since 2010. I volunteered for Alexey Navalny's mayor campaign in 2013 and his presidential campaign in 2018. I donated money to his Anti-Corruption Foundation which investigated and exposed crimes committed by the senior Russian government officials, including Medvedev and Putin himself. Now this foundation is proclaimed as a "terrorist organization" and because of that, according to a new law I'm currently prohibited from participating in any kind of elections for the next 3 years. I was beaten up by the police and arrested multiple times. I had high ranked police officers showing up at my door asking me to testify in court against Navalny and making vague threats to me after I refused to do that. Just this Saturday I was detained again for participating in the anti-war demonstration and yet I still continue to go to the streets of Moscow every evening doing just the same. And now from your email I found out that apparently all that time I was an accomplice to Putin's regime! 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?
- Anton_Rich 5y agoHas America been held accountable for Hiroshima? Have you personally been held accountable for that attack? I don't think so.
- avazhi 5y agoGood for you.
- warner_of_doom 5y agoYou may think that there is an absolute answer to this situation, but there isn't. I recommend that you study commentators and scholars such as: John Mearsheimer, Zbigniew Brezinski, George Friedman, Peter Zeihan, Noam Chomsky, Peter Hitchens, Gonzalo Lira, Tim Marshall, Robert D Kaplan, etc., etc. to gain some insight into the other and more complex side of this story. 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!
- Terry_Roll 5y agoYou should be more informed. You go on about the Russian regime but you know nothing of what your own govt does. 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?
- fabrika 5y agoMaybe you should double or triple the prices for Russian clients and send extra to Ukrainian charities or the army. As a Russian customer, I would be sympathetic to this and would be happy to support Ukraine in this way.
- samstave 5y agoYou should resign.
- DeWilde 5y agoWhat is the purpose of isolating the abuse victim from the rest of the world? 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.
- icemelt8 5y ago
- schrodingercat_ 5y agoOh great. Can I put on a star on which "RUSSIAN" will be written in large? So that a white master could immediately identify a second-class person? Did I understand you correctly?
- knl 5y agoWhile I agree that we need to put sanctions against bad actors, I see that many of the actions being carried out are either media influenced or could be percieved as PR stunts. Namely, are you asking the same from the people in Saudi Arabia, Israel, and US? Because at the very same time, these countries are bombing other countries and killing the civilians there. We should act the same to all bad actors, not just select few.
- helsinkiandrew 5y agoSo far the global sanctions regime has been carefully constructed against the Russian state and specific companies and people supporting it. This is the first time I've seen someone targeting blanket sanctions at the Russian people - it may help your conscience but I'm not sure it helps those in Ukraine - presumably the Russian regime isn't a customer of Namecheap? Sanctioning citizens helps boost the governments case that the US/Nato/world is conspiring against Russia.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- dowakin 5y agoJust thank you so much!
- freddealmeida 5y agoI hope everyone leaves your service. Since the US did the same last year would you remove all US based domains? yeah. i thought so.
- iRobbery 5y agoYou might want to consider terminating for Belarus too now that they are invading Ukraine as well.
- bambax 5y ago> People that are getting angry need to point that at the cause, their own government. 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.
- afroboy 5y agoChina, USA, Israel, Saudi are they next?
- odiroot 5y agoI've been happily using Namecheap for years. Now you really impressed me.
- raxetul 5y agoWithout thinking about crimes of other countries a techninacal question, if you have registered the domain "mail.ru", will you convert it into "mail.com"? Just wondering...
- voidr 5y agoYou are a private company and you can do whatever you want as long as your country's law allows you to do so. 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.
- HyprMusic 5y agoThe US is not the one fighting this war, please stop using whataboutism. Plenty of people condemned USA's and UK's invasion of the middle east (including their own citizens), countries stepped in to help and support the invaded countries fight back (including Russia) - just like we're seeing here from Ukraine's allies.
- voidr 5y ago> The US is not the one fighting this war I wrote 'foolish proxy war between the US and Russia', the whole point of a proxy war is that one does not fight it directly, otherwise it would be just: war. > please stop using whataboutism Calling out hypocrisy is not whataboutism. > Plenty of people condemned USA's and UK's invasion of the middle east (including their own citizens) Compared to what we are seeing now: nobody has condemned the USA. I don't recall the US being hard hit by sanctions for all the countries it has wrecked for no good reason. > countries stepped in to help and support the invaded countries fight back (including Russia) - just like we're seeing here from Ukraine's allies I never implied that it didn't happen in the middle east as well. Please stop straw-manning me.
- ttybird2 5y ago"There are plenty of other choices out there when it comes to infrastructure services so this isn't "deplatforming"" - Deplatforming does not mean that there aren't any other choices. Are you planning to ban USA for all of the wars that it is engaged in or is this a racist and hypocritical move?
- iskamag 5y agoWouldn't I still pay Russia if I move to a different registrar? That makes no sense...
- kovbasa 5y ago
- YetAnotherMeee 5y ago
- gorilych 5y agoI cannot move my freshly registered domain. I guess the reason is described here https://www.icann.org/resources/pages/name-holder-faqs-2017-10-10-en https://www.icann.org/resources/pages/name-holder-faqs-2017-... : "Your registrar may deny a transfer request if the domain name is within 60 days of initial registration" So you are asking me to leave but not letting me go.
- mpfundstein 5y agoi will never use your service again
- ezconnect 5y agoWhy you didn't you ban NATO countries when they destroyed Libya?
- viktorcode 5y agoFirst of all, I don't question you right to do what you are decided to do. And I wish all of your staff members and their families & friends to be safe. But I do have a question: 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.
- djbebs 5y agoGood to know namecheap isn't a reliable business partner. Will be moving over my stuff, and adding it to the blacklist
- vertis 5y agoDisclaimer: I'm a namecheap customer who is not impacted 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).
- RamblingCTO 5y agoI won't comment on the move you made, but I wish all your Ukrainian employees good luck! I'm in the same boat, I've got 6 people (mostly in Lviv though, one in Mykolaiv) there and it really feels shit that you can't do anything at the moment besides being supportive.
- nora-puchreiner 5y ago
- pastacacioepepe 5y agoNow I know namecheap and I are not having anymore business in the future. Your move is just useless and is punishing the wrong people. You play in the hands of the hate towards Russian people. Do you even understand the history of Ukraine and Russia, or sis you just watch fake news about Russians commiting fake war crimes and decided to commit the huge mistake of punishing an entire population for a war moved by few?
- underwatersea 5y agoAs a US based customer I will move away from you. You are potentially shutting down voices in Russia. Maybe an anti-putin blogger will just give up blogging because of this. You are destroying what remains of the free internet of the 90s. 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.
- Asooka 5y agoThis regime will fall. If not now, then in a few years. What you're accomplishing with deplatforming people is making them ensure they do not rely on western services, which in the long run has the detrimental effect of lowering cooperation and increasing segregation. Plus, none of the taxes paid right now go to the war effort, it will take months for any taxes collected today to go fund the military, by which point this war would have ended and whoever peace-oriented leader replaces the current one will need the income to rebuild their country and pay reparations. Additionally, if we adopt a too-far anti-Russian stance, we may see a repeat of post-WW1 Germany. 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.
- NamecheapCEO 5y agoFYI we have updated our policy to make way for those people and organizations that are based in Russia and are fighting against the regime. Same applies to anyone that is not a resident of Russia and has no ties to the regime.
- MockObject 5y agoI'm not Russian, and have no sympathy for the oligarchy that oppresses them, but if I had domains on your service, I would have already moved them away. I will never pay you a dime, and I'll see to it that no company I launch or influence ever does either. May your ill-considered policy be rewarded with bankruptcy.
- ks_rao 5y ago
- jansen555 5y agoYeah. Did you guys is this principled when French NATO razed Libya to ground? I hope in future you will do the same to American as well and not being hypocrite. And China? Good intention but likely just selectively applied and enforced.
- namcheapisdumb 5y ago
- HexbearShill 5y agoPersonally I fully support this sort of action. Governments think they can just commit atrocities and get away with it without business owners having any moral duty to intervene in any way they can. In fact, I would support adding more countries to your list, like the United States
- hibern8 5y agoIt’s scary to see your company give these users such little notice. I am not in Russia but this makes me think twice about using your products.
- yurish 5y agoBravo. Now west shows their true values. Segregation that is. I hope BRICS will learn this lesson.
- nwardez 5y agoI'll be moving my domains elsewhere, even though I have no ties to Russia and am strongly against this invasion. It's really misguided to punish all citizens of a country because a government's actions. You should think a bit deeper about what the actual impact of what you do.
- benzzanxic 5y ago
- lebed2045 5y agosorry, but Namecheap just redirected millions of dollars of potential help to Ukraine to Putin's regime. Here's my open letter to you, Richard https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/namecheap-just-redirected-millions-dollars-potential-help-alex-lebed/?published=t https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/namecheap-just-redirected-mil... Please help to stop the war, not to fuel it!
- MichaelMoser123 5y agoI think that governments should put up financial and other sanctions; putting up sanctions with networking would only aid those who set up the not so great Russian firewall, and their Chinese and Vietnamese equivalents. Also fragmenting the internet is a thing that could backfire. 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...
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- khunmiguel 5y ago
- BywFFi8eMK 5y ago> I sympathize with people that are not pro regime but ultimately even those tax dollars they may generate go to the regime. 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!
- moistrobot 5y agoSplitting your customer base on a political decision is an interesting business choice. I won't be doing business with Namecheap in the future
- qwerty789 5y ago
- Handytinge 5y agoWhat an awful thing to do to people who are probably under high loads of stress already. 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.