
Domain registrar Namecheap is emailing customers registered in Russia saying it will no longer provide them with services because of Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
"Unfortunately, due to the Russian regime's war crimes and human rights violations in Ukraine, we will no longer be providing services to users registered in Russia," the company says in the emails sent earlier today.
"While we sympathize that this war may not affect your own views or opinion on the matter, the fact is, your authoritarian government is committing human rights abuses and engaging in war crimes so this is a policy decision we have made and will stand by."
Namecheap also asked Russian users to move their top-level domains to other providers until March 6 and offered to help those who reach out for assistance with the move.
The company added that all affected domains would be automatically configured to display 403 Forbidden HTTP errors.
"If you hold any top-level domains with us, we ask that you transfer them to another provider by March 6, 2022," Namecheap added.
"Additionally, and with immediate effect, you will no longer be able to use Namecheap Hosting, EasyWP, and Private Email with a domain provided by another registrar in zones .ru, .xn--p1ai (рф), .by, .xn--90ais (бел), and .su.
"All websites will resolve to 403 Forbidden, however, you can contact us to assist you with your transfer to another provider."

Namecheap's CEO also told Russians angry about the company's decision that they have a lot of other providers they can choose to get the same services.
"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'," Namecheap CEO Richard Kirkendall explained.
"People that are getting angry need to point that at the cause, their own government. If more grace time is necessary for some to move, we will provide it."
Namecheap is a US-based technology company and an ICANN-accredited domain registrar with over 1,700 employees across 18 countries.
It provides domain registration, DNS, web hosting, and other services to over 2 million customers worldwide and manages more than 14 million domains.
Comments
the_moss_666 - 1 year ago
I wonder if the company also agrees with idea of punishing all americans, world wide, for crimes committed in Afghanistan for example? Those idiots think this will make anything better? This punishment includes russians who protests against the war as well. You have just created more support for the russian government. Thanks a lot.
Something like this happened before. It ended up with internation camps, innocent people being attack on the street and so on. In Europe, poeple are being attacked for speaking "unpopular language" or having a russian sounding name. It's time so stop before it gets out of hand.
Drags - 1 year ago
Fully agree, just tells me not to use that vendor. Easy as that. I have also seen enough other BS that is going too far. Overall Russians have NOTHING to do with what Putin is dong.
Stop trying to push an agenda on a full countries population.
kalmly - 1 year ago
I also agree. Lots of punishment for the Russian people who have no more control over their government's actions than I have over mine. Meanwhile Putin does as he pleases.
buddy215 - 1 year ago
Businesses and countries around the world are cutting ties with Russians and the Russian government. Sanctions have been imposed. Arms are being sent to Ukraine.
Opposing Namecheap's action is misguided for those who want to help Ukraine and oppose the Russian war on Ukraine.
EndangeredPootisBird - 1 year ago
TBH, this means cybercriminals, 60% of which originates from Russia, will have fewer options to host malware, phishing and scams.
alex2012 - 1 year ago
Kind of shocking coming from a sketch service where half of the phishing and scam websites come from.
mynameisgod - 1 year ago
We block ALL incoming email from domains registered to Namecheap. They are behind almost 100% of all spam attacks I have monitored for the last 12 years. If you use Namecheap you are automatically blacklisted.
All of their trash domains, like .xyz, .info are a plague on the internet.