Comment by NamecheapCEO

I 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/).

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.

> 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.

Pathetic.

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.

Why 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.

Look 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)

> 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?

You 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

I 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.

Would 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?

I 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.

> 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

I'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.

Selective 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.

Everything 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.

I 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.

How 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.

I 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.

> 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"?

Are 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)

I 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.

Are 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.

Could 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.

I'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.

As 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.

you'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.

> 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?

This 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?

I 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.

>"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.

It'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_inte...

I 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.

I 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.

Donating 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.

> 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.

This 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.

> 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.

You 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!

Just to be clear, this is definitionally "deplatforming". Having "plenty of other choices" doesn't change that. There are always other choices.

I 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.

> 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.

Thanks 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.

Dear 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

All 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.

> 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.

Namecheap has just ruined its reputation. Giving almost no time for domain transfer is insane. I will avoid using your services at any cost.

Perhaps 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.

> 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.

I 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.

>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?

Why 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?

i’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

> 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?

Before 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.

Disclaimer: 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).

This 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.

How 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.

I'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.

What 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.

So, 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?

Do Israel next. The tax dollars support Apartheid and war crimes.

This is gross. People aren't their governments, did you cancel US domain registrations when the US government invaded Iraq?

Why not just block renewals and new registrations? Do you have to pay taxes to Russia on .ru registrations at other times?

Hello. 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?

GoDaddy's CEO ought to send you a fruit basket or something, you just made salesmen of the year!

I cannot move my freshly registered domain. I guess the reason is described here 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.

Should Chinese residents be concerned?

While 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.

If 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.

I support your stance on this.

Speaking as a Namecheap customer for several years now.

There'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.

Russia 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-...

Just 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.

This 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.

I'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.

I 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.

I hope everyone leaves your service. Since the US did the same last year would you remove all US based domains? yeah. i thought so.

Has America been held accountable for Hiroshima? Have you personally been held accountable for that attack? I don't think so.

Maybe 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.

It is deplatforming. And I’ll be transferring my domains elsewhere. US Citizen.

You 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.

You 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!

My domains will be moving from your service as a result.

Are you guys doing the same to US users due to their country's many war crimes?

There 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.

As 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.

Didn't a big migration to the Namecheap service occur a decade ago because GoDaddy unilaterally suspended a domain without recourse?

A lot of Russian residents have a relatives in Ukraine. In this terrifying moment you've just added one more headache for them.

Who will return our money?

"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?

What 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?

Personally 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

What 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.

I'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.

I 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...

So 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.

Why you didn't you ban NATO countries when they destroyed Libya?

Iraq, 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?

First 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.

Without 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...

As 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.

Now 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?

You'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.

“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.

You 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?

As 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.

> 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!

China, USA, Israel, Saudi are they next?

It really sucks that you'd do this.

I 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.

FYI "ensure" is misspelled as "insure" on the banner that shows on every page.

FYI 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.

I've been happily using Namecheap for years. Now you really impressed me.

Dont 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"?

Oh 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?

How 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 ?

Just 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-...

sorry, 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-mil...

Please help to stop the war, not to fuel it!

You 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.

It’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.

You 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?

Will 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.

Splitting your customer base on a political decision is an interesting business choice.

I won't be doing business with Namecheap in the future

Good to know namecheap isn't a reliable business partner.

Will be moving over my stuff, and adding it to the blacklist

Bravo. Now west shows their true values. Segregation that is. I hope BRICS will learn this lesson.

You might want to consider terminating for Belarus too now that they are invading Ukraine as well.

And yes, still no official announcement for this stuff. Your reputation Namecheap is 0 now.

Wouldn't I still pay Russia if I move to a different registrar? That makes no sense...

I'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.

good 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.

Hey @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.

I’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?

Thanks for clarifying why not to use your service

Thank you for your position and for your support!

Thank 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.

So you're totally cool with the AZOV Battalion, right? They're the heroes? You're definitely OK with not doing this to Ukraine?

Why freeze what's free?

Just thank you so much!

You should resign.

i will never use your service again

Good for you.

Thank you!

Thank you for your support!

Not 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.

As 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.

Yeah. 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.

I 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?

I genuinely hope this is a joke, REALLY....