Namecheap: Russia Service Termination
Dear XXXX,
Unfortunately, due to the Russian regime's war crimes and human rights violations in Ukraine, we will no longer be providing services to users registered in Russia. While we sympathize that this war may not affect your own views or opinion on the matter, the fact is, your authoritarian government is committing human rights abuses and engaging in war crimes so this is a policy decision we have made and will stand by.
If you hold any top-level domains with us, we ask that you transfer them to another provider by March 6, 2022.
Additionally, and with immediate effect, you will no longer be able to use Namecheap Hosting, EasyWP, and Private Email with a domain provided by another registrar in zones .ru, .xn--p1ai (рф), .by, .xn--90ais (бел), and .su. All websites will resolve to 403 Forbidden, however, you can contact us to assist you with your transfer to another provider.
Customer Support, Namecheap
2,097 comments
[ 0.22 ms ] story [ 352 ms ] threadI sincerely hope Namecheap reconsiders.
While it seems hard to fathom how big this anti-Putin tsunami really is but can you name any big companies based in North Korea? Like North Korea, Russia has just become reliant upon China for pretty much everything.
Yeah, it always starts like that until somebody doesn't like your nose, religion or whatever.
Prime example of the risk associated with using a centralized entity.
At the same time, a bold and clear move.
Any politically neutral registrars that HN crowd can recommend?
Have you ever tried to fight against the regime at the cost of spending years in prison or to be killed?
https://www.namecheap.com/blog/internet-freedom-the-state-of...
So hopefully they have kept that spirit and don't do any of that bullshit.
https://ens.domains https://ipfs.io/
If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and taking the intended spirit of the site more to heart, we'd be grateful.
If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and taking the intended spirit of the site more to heart, we'd be grateful.
It’s difficult to read an endless stream of comments about how I should personally be punished for the actions of someone I despise.
I have done nothing wrong, and yet so many people are saying that I should be poor, hungry and destitute unless if I die trying to take down Putin.
It's hard to hold the complexity of these situations at the best of times, and when people are feeling stressed, afraid, and so on, capacity for that plummets further. Then we start feeling like empathy for the suffering of one person or group means demanding suffering for others.
Ultimately, people in Russia are paying taxes towards this war, and have some responsibility for their government.
Because I'm Russian, I guess?
https://www.namecheap.com/careers/ukraine/
Will there be good Russians unfairly hurt as collateral damage? Yes.
But the Ukrainian civilians being gunned down in the streets and having their homes blown up are also being unfairly hurt. There is very little they can do to stop it, but they've been forced to drop everything and fight.
Like it or not, you're on one side of a war. It's to be expected that your life will be inconvenienced - so have lives on the other side. You can flee - nothing wrong with that - or you can protest, but you can't hope that you won't be impacted.
No it doesnt because is not a democratic country, why is it so hard for people like you to understand that things work very different in a democratic country than in non-democratic country?
Do you know what happens when you are in a country that doesnt respect human rights and you go to "protest"?
Do you know what happens when you, as a citizen with no power, try to fight a military regime?
Do you really think, russians right now are enjoyinig this and will somehow march to get Putin's head because their quality of life will be miserable now? no, they wont, because the moment they start doing it, they will be repressed and killed, and there you will be, super happy sharing your support posts to those people
the worst part of all of these, is that you don't realize that one of the goals of putin is to undermine his own state, so he can keep power for the years to come, and here you are, helping him :), good job at making every russian life even worse.
From the site guidelines
Protest isn't even a necessary event. If the reward of continuing the war becomes less than the damage of continuing it, it only needs Putin. Regardless, he always enjoyed a very high approval rating while amassing his position.
>Do you know what happens when you are in a country that doesnt respect human rights and you go to "protest"?
>Do you know what happens when you, as a citizen with no power, try to fight a military regime?
Luckily I am not Ukrainian, so I am not having this discovery forced upon me.
I sympathize with this position but I also feel conflicted because despite the enormous amount of evidence that Putin was a bad guy as recently as 2017 he had 80+% approval rating. If had not had large scale popular support for most of the last 20 years despite his anti-democratic anti-freedom behaviour would he be in a position to execute this war?
I don't have good answers for this question but just as democracy isn't just having a vote political support in a non-democracy isn't just having the legal use of violence at your disposal. It is challenging for anyone from outside Russia that wants to oppose his regime to find a way that doesn't hurt ordinary Russians if most ordinary Russians mostly have supported him.
They cannot put every Russian in jail, if you are not on the streets and burning the Kremlin you clearly don't care enough
What if police would join the protest?
Maybe if we blow up enough Russian power plants they’ll spontaneously overthrow Putin!
IOC lists have been plagued with domains registered through Namecheap for years.
Namecheap is doing this for ideological reasons but this single action should (in theory) disrupt a lot of existing malware connections to hostile infrastructure.
But what does anyone expect? All this international business depends on stable, peaceful relations. Russia broke that. The party will not go on.
We know you're not personally responsible for the invasion of Ukraine. And that's not any different than the embargoes during any prior armed conflict.
On one hand we ask large companies to show more heart and humanity, and on the other hand we rail against them when they take a principled stand.
How anyone can expect a company to honour any corporate agreement in such an environment boggles my mind. Let alone company that sells domains and prides itself on being 'cheap'.
People and principles should come first, and money second. This is exactly the world we want to live in, right? Not some capitalist dystopia.
FWIW, I do not begrudge affected customers being angry, that seems very fair. I just also think this is a very reasonable course of action by Namecheap.
(This is one of those threads where we also thank dang for this service.)
Attacking random Russians for something you don’t like of their leader is as dumb as post-9/11 Sikh bashing or interning German/Italian/Japanese after Pearl Harbor and the war declaration.
Way to make a shit situation worse.
Here's my thoughts: Just because you are tricked into voting fake elections with puppets on both sides, the dirty business your elites do in poor parts of the world to make themselves richer is not your responsibility.
- You want to turn Russians against Putin, yes. But you don't want to have those same people hate Ukraine/US.
- For example, sanctioning a hospital or stopping sales of food or medical supplies into Russia would be a stupid sanction. Forbidding oligarchs from living luxury lives in Europe is a good one.
- Right now, most sanctions are focused on the wealthy and influential Russians, since those are the ones that have any sway.
- My guess is that the vast majority of Namecheap customer's are exactly the ones that will protest against Putin, or organize information campaigns aginst him.
- Obviously sanctioning Kasparov or Navalny would be the dumbest move. This is sort of in that same category.
I think it makes sense that the European people should also feel the immediate pressure for actively funding the war for the foreseeable future. They're an absolutely massive income stream, and should be part of the collateral, especially since they've been warned about this for decades now.
I would be interested in seeing a counter argument to this.
I would do everything in my power to isolate and fight against a country engaging in a war of conquest in the modern era. For me it would not be a choice.
Good for them, moving to nic.ru
Doesn’t have to be. We did it in Portugal some 50 years ago [1]! I think just four people died.. We have been living in democracy since then, joined the European Union, etc.. So, it is possible..
[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carnation_Revolution
This is why only four people have died. Death toll in Russia in case of a mass revolution would be tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands.
This is exactly why I'm doing what I can, but avoiding any violence. This is not the way we win this.
I read interview with somebody from Russia yesterday, russian tracks getting their tires punctured in EU and get stuck because credit cards don't work anymore. Ships refuse to offload goods in Russian ports and drop them of "wherever in Europe". Russian companies can't buy/rent containers to bring goods to Russia.
It's a lot of collateral damage.
On the other side my brothers in law family in Kharkiv sleeps in hallway for past few days while outside blow up cluster munition delivered by MLRS systems https://twitter.com/YWNReporter/status/1498271572292952064?s...
Edit: just to add, I myself was born in Kyiv. Company where I work now has officies both in Ukraine (in one of hotter places) and in russia. I am equally trying to help my colleagues from both offices to GTFO. Collateral damage is unfortunate for private person but frankly not surprising. What is "surprising" it's that a big chunk of Russian population is surprised by it
There is also articles on official new sites (like RIA) that neo-nazis are executing Ukranian Military personal that doesn't want to fight.
Internet doesn't help. It's all about bubble...
As very unpleasant example, my father who lived most of his live in Kyiv but lives in Germany for past 15 years or so, is consuming only russian media. He is sure that Ukraine is ruled by neo-nazis from bunkers in Kyiv and whatever Russia is doing it's appropriate. This was his opinion after first day. Don't think that it changed
Just ask anyone who has moved to Seattle, but has conservative family back in their home state. Folks believe we live in an anarchist hellscape. Myself and several friends have had the experience of being called liars by family members who trust Fox News over the word of their blood relatives. It's absolutely maddening.
Anyway, just making local-jokes mostly. Not actually attacking Seattle :)
edit: Is it because i was kidding, or is very mild criticism of Seattle not appreciated? It's not like i live in Texas and have never been there lol.
But it's not unique to Seattle. Tacoma and Olympia (where i live) is bad too. Cities just suck these days it seems.
I understand it was exacerbated by covid and the BLM riots of 2020, but I don’t think people are exaggerating when they say that much of Seattle is a pretty shocking place to be.
Think q-anon level of brainwash. Or some cult, donno.
My wifes parents are in same "state". It took her a few years to come to peace with it :/ Logical discussions with them not possible
One of the best that i saw it's claim that because what is Putin doing is okay under russian law and was approved by duma, there by definition can't be anything wrong with it.
Living in <western ccountry> for <more than a decade> [0], telling how putin's russia is a heaven, and west is rotten gay propaganda hellscape.
Asking why they are not moving back to russia usually leaves them speechless.
russian propaganda/troll machine is next level, I could give them that. goebbels would be proud.
[0] If there's a significant russian speaking diaspora it's not unusual that such people do not understand local language almost at all, even after living for decades.
(Edited for clarity)
I understand the arguments about individuals and how it could be a burden with all that's going on, but a private company? What's the argument?
The best|worst situation here would be if NamecheapCEO would think this is how it should be. I would laugh my ass off on this hypocrisy.
Should I e-mail some photos of my bruises left by police batons on my ribs? Or maybe I should kneel?
This is humiliating, and you know it. You're just making more problems and creating more danger for absolutely innocent people, just in spite.
This is the essence of cancel culture, now on a national level.
I do get the idea of sanctions -- I'm legally prevented by publicly commenting on this due to some Russian law -- but I understand if a foreign business body has to terminate its business relations with a Russian one.
But kicking out paid customers just based on their nationality, knowing that they have no direct control over situation, and still blaming them for it? This is f**d up, I'm sorry.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
MORE direct combattants, _especially_ from other superpowers, is the last thing that we need. Adding additional powerderkegs to the existing fire does nothing to stop it.
Essentially yes. The current step is the equivalent of DEFCON 3.
As for Putin, he's basically a gopnik. There's a Russian word for what these guys do - "быковать", literally "bulling", but it's basically a display of aggression to establish oneself higher in the hierarchy and to make the victim afraid to fight back. If you acquiesce to gopnik's demands, he will come up with more, until the point where he "justifiably" takes away your phone and wallet.
that tired misconception should be dropped. West can send any weapons to Ukraine, and volunteers from West, trained tank drivers and pilots, can drive those Abrams tanks and fly those F-16 planes. Russia and China has been doing "volunteer" trick just fine.
World needs to start to learn to deal with such situations. China/Taiwan is coming and total sanctions regime wouldn't be possible with China.
We need to lose that term. It's not cancel culture to decide who you do and don't want to associate with, or do business with. That's freedom. The people being rejected only think their own freedom matters. Unless they are a protected class, that simply isn't true.
I have many domains at Namecheap and I will not be able to afford transfer them out due to financial situation.
Is there any way I can still keep domains at Namecheap? Which cases are anti-regime?
Use a Russian registrar. Or leave Russia. This sucks. War sucks. But I don’t see how anyone can continue doing business in Russia while maintaining a clean conscience.
This is me, plain and simple. I would like to immigrate, but I have no legal grounds.
Serious question, no gimmicks or laughs: should I die or be cancelled by the rest of the world?
You should not die. But you don’t have an inaliable right to thrive in your country.
Again, not trying to be a dick. War sucks. I am truly sorry you’re hurting. And I am not suggesting it’s your duty to join a resistance movement or whatever. But these are considerations and costs we must all weigh when our governments do horrible things. Most of the time, sadly, the world won’t care. We (America) have war criminals who should be in jail. But occasionally, the world gets horrified and rises to the occasion. Even that occasional threat is better than nothing.
I agree, this is not enough. But this is by no means an excuse to cancel an entire nation.
This cannot be justified.
What bugs me is that they did not make a distinction between private individuals and corporations, if I were in their position I would have let the private individuals go, they are Russians, not Russia.
Even so: every Russian citizen and every Russian company that is currently relying on businesses in the West such as Amazon, Google, Microsoft and so on should expect those services to be cut off at some point in the near future.
The most disgustingly american thing ever said.
Where do you get off reneging contracts and fleecing people of their money based solely on longitude and latitude and TLD?
They’re terminating their contract, not reneging.
>verb
> go back on a promise, undertaking, or contract.
If you entered into an agreement to provide service (eg. provide domain registration for one year), and one side unilaterally terminates the relationship, that sounds pretty close to reneging. In addition, the CEO have promised refunds for some services, but not domain registrations. In that case you quite literally paid for one year of service, and are not getting that.
>I don't think it is relevant to international boycotts, in letter or in spirit
Of course the First Amendment is relevant to international boycotts. How else would Namecheap half-assingly justifying its premature pullout? If they don't want to renew those domains after a year is up, I wouldn't have a problem, but that's not the case.
My issue is not Namecheap's boycott in and of itself, but the process of damning a host of individuals on the barest of relations to the Russian government while having the gall to take their money and run away.
I think this is conflating two issues that are altogether very different. In the first, Name cheap was pro section 230 protection, because without it they believed that they would have no choice but to censor people due to the potential for legal liabilities incurred without those protections. They were not advocating for the right of people to not be deplatformed due to their speech. And that isn't even what is happening here, namecheap is deciding to boycott Russia because of the actions of the Russian government, not the speech of the individual Russians. The first amendment in spirit is about protecting citizens from the state and absolutely does not mandate who you do business with and why. There are other laws for protected classes in the US but the whole issue of US law just seems absolutely disjointed in my mind.
> Of course the First Amendment is relevant to international boycotts. How else would Namecheap half-assingly justifying its premature pullout?
I don't follow at all, sorry. They make no reference to the first amendment, they simply believe it is not in their best interests to do business with Russian citizens at this time because of the actions of the Russian government. This kind of boycott strategy happens all the time.
To quote Namecheap:
"As citizens ourselves, we embrace the joy of hearing all voices. The power to regulate or restrict speech or expression concentrated in the hands of only a few big tech companies is not how we want those decisions made for us."
And what has it done today? It's nakedly hypocritical that Namecheap engages in those same restrictions against its own customers. If they just said "We're a business for free speech when said speech is convenient to our interests. Take it or leave it", that wouldn't be so much of an issue.
> the actions of the Russian government, not the speech of the individual Russians
> they simply believe it is not in their best interests to do business with Russian citizens at this time because of the actions of the Russian government. This kind of boycott strategy happens all the time.
Then why dissociate on the basis of TLDs of which many Americans may be domain holders? Or why is it that individual Russians citizens are having their websites taken down for the actions of their government? Namecheap is not being selective or proportionate.
I don't agree that closing up shop in a neighborhood after someone there threatens you with violence, is a free speech issue, even if the shop was selling posterboard and markers you could use for signs to exercise free speech.
> Then why dissociate on the basis of TLDs of which many Americans may be domain holders? Or why is it that individual Russians citizens are having their websites taken down for the actions of their government? Namecheap is not being selective or proportionate.
I agree this is fair criticism. I don't know enough about their business to know if there is a better way they could be selective.
The Russian government is not marching on Ukraine. There are no bureaucrats and politicians driving tanks. Russia's army is. And it's Russia's people who give power to the state to direct them. It would be absurd for an uncaring Russian individual to complain about essentially paltry financial or logistical issues as while being complicit in the erosion of Ukranian individuals' right to life.
Should US citizens have been cut off from registrar providers in 2003 because of the war in Iraq? Let's be consistent here. If you think that a state being an adversarial warmonger is the requirement to deny it's people a service they paid for, even the one's who never wanted a war, then every person on the planet is liable by proxy of their current or previous governments.
>While it's not the aim of this move, during every war, communications of the enemy are hindered.
By an army against another army, not a private organization against civilians. Namecheap is not a military or paramilitary organization. Namecheap is a private business, and is still subject to US laws as a private business. Hindering communications of an "enemy" isn't a justification for outright financial fraud.
>The First Amendment would never have been written if the authors valued the rights of British Soldiers as much as their own.
I'm not able to follow what this is supposed to mean. British soldiers at the direction of the Crown violated the rights of empire's own subjects under the Coercive Acts and initiated violence in Concord & Lexington. The soldiers made their bed. The Bill of Rights were not ratified until until 1791, well after the war.
>The Russian government is not marching on Ukraine. There are no bureaucrats and politicians driving tanks. Russia's army is.
Who's directing the army? Who's the one in control of those nuclear warheads being brought out. The civilians aren't the one's driving BMPs or flying MI-8s. Most if pressed, couldn't even point to Kyiv on a map. I don't know if you're either absolving Putin of his actions as though he doesn't have free will or claiming everyone in Russia is as guilty as he is for being Russian, but this is a terrible argument.
>And it's Russia's people who give power to the state to direct them.
This is a false premise. It's almost laughable. You're conflating American jurisprudence with the politics of the Kremlin. In case you haven't noticed, the Russian government is not a government by the people or for the people.
>It would be absurd for an uncaring Russian individual to complain about essentially paltry financial or logistical issues as while being complicit in the erosion of Ukranian individuals' right to life.
In short: "Ukrainians have it worse, so Russian civilians should accept what's doled out to them". If you can think there can only be one victim at any one time, then I've got news for you.
>This is a false premise. It's almost laughable. You're conflating American jurisprudence with the politics of the Kremlin. In case you haven't noticed, the Russian government is not a government by the people or for the people.
They have far more influence than the people of Ukraine.
>In short: "Ukrainians have it worse, so Russian civilians should accept what's doled out to them". If you can think there can only be one victim at any one time, then I've got news for you.
So Ukraine's people should not shoot back?
> Namecheap expressly reserves the right to deny, cancel, terminate, suspend, lock, or modify access to (or control of) any account or any Services (including the right to cancel or transfer any domain name registration) for any reason (as determined by Namecheap in its sole and absolute discretion), including but not limited to the following: <SNIP MORE OF THE SAME>
from - https://www.namecheap.com/legal/universal/universal-tos/
Those terms of service documents that no one reads are part of, if not all the of the contract. Most service providers have the same (effectively anyway) clause in them. They also have clauses that allow them to modify their terms of service any way they want.
Unless someone has a different, specifically negotiated contract with the company that states otherwise - this is not a violation rightly or wrongly. This is why a lot of B2B involves contract negotiation that takes a long time, those businesses can't tolerate the instability of a contract that can be terminated or changed on a whim.
"You [Domain Name Registrant] shall not be subject to false advertising or deceptive practices by your Registrar or though any proxy or privacy services made available by your Registrar. This includes deceptive notices, hidden fees, and any practices that are illegal under the consumer protection law of your residence"
https://www.icann.org/resources/pages/benefits-2013-09-16-en
IANAL, but I'm quite sure that failure to render services for payment counts as an illegal action under consumer protection laws in Russia and elsewhere.
Now you are joining this effort on behalf of Putin. Good job, товарищ! Please report to Russian embassy to get your 30 silver pieces.
I really do sorry for your situation, I really hope that namecheap will work out with you. I do hope that EU and other countries will extend humanitarian visas to people that try to escape russia now before iron curtain will fall down. Yet, at this moment, it is what it is.
> Approximately 69% of Russians now approve of Putin, compared to the 61% who approved of him in August 2021
https://theconversation.com/putins-public-approval-is-soarin...
It might very well be inflicting lots of suffering on the populations, for no result.
I am genuinely asking, as I have not been presented with any preferable alternatives.
He's long said something like "when the West hates me, that's when I'm on the right path." (My paraphrase from memory)
So the population is perhaps primed for another conclusion.
Many times the West was very hesitant on acting against russia's shenanigans (most notably Georgia and Crimea), because "it will hurt the common person and not those who are making decisions".
Now russia is in de facto conventional war with Ukraine and in information/business war with __all__ of the West. putin is out of ideas and freaking blasting cities with bombs like it's London 1940. The West is still not enganging russia in conventional war, due to nukes, but if it's war why one side needs to cry, run, starve and die, when other nation can sit by their propaganda tv and eat the kool-aid.
In this new information age it's the only possible resistance against the regime - Iron Curtain 2.0. The West cannot win informational war inside russia. Those who know english and know how to use internet are mostly young Moscovites, everyone else is sucked into propaganda, there's not enough critical mass. Propaganda is at the same level that Germans did not know or believe that there are concentration camps next door.
Either topple the regime, leave [0] or be living under Iron Curtain 2.0 stand in lines for bread with your money that are worthless.
I believe the West tried for the longest time not to play into this "russophobia" card. The sanctions definitely work together with russian propaganda ("look wht those evil gay nazi imperialist west are doing for simple russian people"). And for the longest time big players like DE, UK, FR did not understand putin, compared to how post-soviet countries like the Baltics and Poland warned. DE for the longest time that you can work with putin like any other liberal democratic leader. Now all this is in the trash and everyone is united against putin.
I am repeating myself - but I guess it's the only way to work against putin. Conventional war with other superpowers will most likely mean nukes, i.e. end of the human world.
[0] I bet many young people from Moscow or Peter will attempt to do this.
Probably some kind of fragmentation rocket fired from a grad[0].
[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BM-21_Grad
At least I don't see any rockets in any of the frames. And the explosions don't seem that big.
With the frame rate and resolution of the video, it isn't surprising that it's hard to see a rocket.
The rockets look like fragmentation warheads, you can see a lot of shrapnel get thrown off on each impact, frag explosions won't look as large or bright as other kinds of HE warheads.
Anyway, I guess you're right. Even if this was edge of the killing field with a mix of submunitions from various rockets fired at different times, there's be a lot of noise in the video from the other submunitions hitting nearby.
And the effect is negative - I moved domains out of NameCheap to Russia simply because any other US or EU based registrar can do the same crazy thing and are not trusted.
So Putin's regime actually got more money out of this.
If you are no longer based in Russia and not doing business there, we'll consider that as well.
I find it really distasteful that a couple of you cannot even be bothered to transfer some domains. You know what your taxes are funding right now don't you???
And right now more than 7000 people already arrested in Russia for participating in anti-war protests https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022_anti-war_protests_in_Russ... . Sorry we didn't trying hard enough!
Ironically, I think the 2014 Revolution of Dignity would be a good inspiration.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolution_of_Dignity
So far it seems like the police are being allowed to arrest protesters, no one/very few fights back with molotov cocktails like they did in Ukraine in 2014.
The Russian government's actions in Ukraine are horrifying. People wanting to spite anyone with a Russian background is distasteful and I fear it may simply backfire if it keeps building, similar to anti-Asian violence after covid or western actions and racism only empowering the message of Islamic extremists.
I'm fine with punishing corporations and putting a squeeze on Russian billionaires so they'll breathe down Putin's neck. Telling a random dude born in Russia to bugger off just isn't right to me. My home country has a history of awful shit but nobody ever actively turned me away just for my background.
Whether you agree with Namecheaps' decisions or not, they are Namecheap's decisions to make.
You're likely absolutely correct that Namecheap won't effect any real change with this move. That said, why shouldn't they show (non)support for whomever they choose?
Yes, this is likely a pain in the ass for many Namecheap customers and will likely piss a bunch of people (Russians and non-Russians alike) off.
It's also likely to negatively affect Namecheap's financials as well.
I have no relationship (financial or otherwise) with Namecheap, nor am I a Russian national. As such, you might think that it's easy for me to take this position. And perhaps you're right.
Then again, I believe freedom of association is an important civil liberty. As such, I don't fault Namecheap for their decisions.
Especially since the company (and right here in this HN discussion) has claimed they will continue to do business (and/or provide more time for transition) with those who aren't supporting the Putin regime.
As you mentioned, most tech folks in RU are anti-Putin. Why shouldn't tech folks outside of RU take the same position?
I know I'm horrifed and outraged by Russia's recent actions. Just as horrifed and outraged, by the way, as by my own government's (US) actions in Iraq and elsewhere.
I'm sorry that you're being negatively impacted by this. It's not fair to you and others.
I'd point out that this wouldn't even be an issue if the Russian government (your government) hadn't chosen violence, murder and destruction.
As such, it's not with Namecheap you should be angry.
Feel free to disagree. Like I said, I have no skin in this "game," except in wishing the Ukrainian people well and hope for their safe passage through this dangerous situation, wholly created by your government.
I couldn't agree more. One of your upvotes is mine.
That's the exact sentiment (along with the "please don't play the pity card" comment higher up) that's leading average Westerners to assault ethnic-Russian or Russian-speaking people living in the West, who have absolutely zero to do with the Russian government. And it's the same sentiment that lead to the rise in anti-Asian hate & violence in the last few years.
When average people become an acceptable target, it's (at least implicitly) dehumanizing. Regardless of whether people like you would endorse that violence (I'm sure you never would), we've seen where this rhetoric leads.
There's the same classic motte-and-bailey as with coronavirus ("we're really just calling out the government, not the people"), except in the current Russian case, there's a lot more motte than bailey since citizens are explicitly an accepted target.
That may be true. I haven't heard about such stuff (and a cursory web search didn't show any reports of violence against Russians in Western countries), but I did see protests by Ukrainians in New York City that were joined by Russians, with both groups calling for Russia to stop this violence and murder.
Perhaps I'm too wrapped in my own filter bubble that I don't see it?
Can you point to specific incidents where civillan Russian nationals and/or those of Russian descent have been attacked in "Western countries"?
That would be really helpful. Thanks!
https://www.nbcwashington.com/news/local/vandals-break-windo...
https://www.cbs8.com/article/news/nation-world/ukraine/russi...
I even came across tweets sharing the same experience, while searching for these articles. Here's one:
https://twitter.com/ZITTIEBNl/status/1497963179409915910
Those are disturbing stories. It's unfortunate that this has only been reported by local news outlets.
Folks who engage in such activities should be found and prosecuted to the full extent of the law. There should be no place for such violence/harassment of anyone.
I imagine that the vast majority (>98%) of people in Western countries would agree with that statement.
But there are assholes everywhere. They are small in number, but they pretty evenly distributed throughout the population. And we will never get rid of them.
But a few incidents, while reprehensible, among nearly 3/4 billion people, is hardly a hemispheric plot against Russians and/or those of Russian extraction. Wouldn't you agree?
OTOH it does work wonderfully as fuel for Russian government agitprop: "see, they really are out to get you, not just us!".
Namecheap has lots of Ukrainian employees, including a few of their C level employees, who simply can't choose to not fight. Not sure this is the line of reasoning you want to take...
Where were you last Wednesday for instance, hours before the "pacification" took place? Not complaining perhaps, not doing anything.
Not doing anything
In most cases it takes no more than a few hours. Maybe a day.
Despite the wording in the email, that link also allows you to approve the transfer. I did that yesterday and once I approved the transfers using that link, the transfer happened pretty much immediately.
Their boss decided to align with them over a dollar. A rarity in the corporate world to be sure.
It’s inconvenient for some people, but that’s about all it is.
You broke the deal and decided to keep the money!! It so disappointing. I hope there will be a class action suit, or other form of responsibility for such a misconduct.
They also have what sounds like a sizeable workforce in Ukraine itself, so it should be pretty obvious why they chose to blacklist the entire nation invading their direct coworkers'.
Some US citizens with Russian heritage could have Russian addresses listed like 10 years ago.
Would be funny to see this case in court.
It's just like how Walmart.com doesn't ship to China. That's legal. And if I'm in the US, and I put a Chinese address on my Walmart.com account, and they don't ship me a package, that's not discrimination, that's just a mistake.
Now, if Namecheap starts intentionally going after people of Russian origin outside of Russia, that's a different story, but it doesn't look like that's what's happening here.
There are a few words for that philosophy, and legality of that business practice becomes questionable.
A better way you could have done this would be to announce non-renewal but have a single-renewal escape clause for people who are too busy to deal with it. This would allow you to make your point without shafting the consumer. You could also have given something back like a one-time at-cost discount on moving to new replacement domains. You know, act in solidarity with your customer instead of against them.
PS. It's not too late to fix this. Be part of the internet we love, the internet that crosses borders and joins people.
Nationalism is an infantile disease. It is the measles of mankind. - Einstein
Maybe you're not worried about business continuity of the newly sanctioned customers, but other customers who aren't currently sanctioned but may be subject to future sanctions because they don't control the regime they live in would appreciate a more reasonable continuity process.
Of course, if these sanctions are as a result of legal requirements, gotta follow the law. But, so far, there doesn't seem to be a blanket ban on business with people in Russia; other than banking restrictions make it hard to transact.
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.
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.
I get the impression this is a lot of why they made this business decision. They're standing strongly by their employees.
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.
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.
NATO is a defensive measure against ( as it is proven now) a valid threat. I'm reiterating my statement of 2 years ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23679110 - Which was flagged, but unfortunately seems to be already proven right (partially, since it's not over at all) in hindsight. Since the latest threats of Russia are now also against the EU ( and as such, NATO)
Russia ( as in Putin's Russia) is destroying everything possible. The West ( as in democratic countries) tried for a long time that trade will improve democracy, this is even the underlying 'raison d'être' of the EU.
There is ( i believe) a big shift coming away of that thinking. Where other countries like Hungary ( as in Orban's Hungary) should be aware that the EU is toughening their stance with the latest events unfolding.
I'm not sure I can agree that Belgium's contribution of machine guns to Ukraine [1] don't qualify as playing an active role.
I guess I should say that regardless of whether it's an active role, I'm happy that they are doing it, and I'm happy that my government is doing the same.
[1] https://www.thebulletin.be/belgium-sends-convoy-military-equ...
Some quirks to work out, but at the current time it doesn't even matter.
I do hope that Ukraine can fend off long enough. It makes me sad that they are on the front and we are sitting in the comfort from our chairs surrounded by countries enjoying hard-fought democracy by our grandparents.
PS. Planning to take a month holiday to help in Ukraine if all goes well. Donated some, but I'd rather spend time physically helping, no military experience.
The US has just weaponized global finance. A country's access to most of the world is now contingent upon playing by the US/EU's rules. Or, there's China.
And if by "rules" you mean not acting like North Korea, then yes. You should play by those rules.
You jest, but much like a man who has just lost his job and has no foreseeable income, Russia is now entirely dependent upon what savings it has to pay for everything... from China. Surely, China wouldn't take advantage of their comrades, right?
Please keep snark off HN at the best of times (this is in the site guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html) and certainly in a case like this. Piling on an individual is definitely not a good way to respond.
I appreciate what you said later in your comment but unfortunately flamebait is determined by the flamiest bit, and you led with that.
These are the consequences of the decisions made by exizt88’s government, it is not unfair to point this out. Nobody is blaming him.
E: How could this comment possibly deserve to be flagged?
Suggesting that exizt88 should "welcome" this war is indistinguishable from nationalistic flamebait. The point about government involvement was already addressed in their previous comment. The basic argument that government decisions have unintended consequences is valid, but could certainly be made in a more polite and respectful manner.
In the meantime, the policy as a whole makes a lot of sense to me. While it's certain to have some collateral damage, but so does shelling a city. Guess which group of people I have more sympathy for at the moment?
Anyhow, it's clear you didn't mean it that way and it needn't be a big deal. The big-deal aspect is not one phrase in one individual comment—it's the tendency of humans to become mobs when emotions get activated. That, unfortunately, has been displaying itself a lot here lately.
My situation is different, but equally anecdotal. I left Russia years ago, as soon as I could. My company isn't in Russia. I don't pay taxes in Russia. I am not even Russian by ethnicity, but I have relatives in Russia and I am still holding a Russian passport. Does that make me a bad person? Even if I were Russian, is it against the ICANN rules to belong to certain ethnicities or nationalities?
As a final note, people who live in CIS all have friends in both countries. For them the war is real and not on a TV screen. Imagine how many hours will those people waste changing those damn configs instead of helping people in need in both Ukraine and Russia...
Making me use 50% less electricity is one thing. Having to move all my domains would be quite another.
This decision will not prevent a single missile from being fired. On the contrary, it will put more power into Russian entities.
1) The fact that they ask to move Russians to other registrators, is just barely an inconvenience. It cost me 30 seconds to create a ticket in scrum and developers will move everything. But misjudgment by nationality is bad. Imagine if all Jewish customers will get such letters because Isreal/Palestinian war?
2) Catastrophic is this: instead of using millions of dollars from Russian customers to help to save Ukraine and lives - they steer away from this money to governmental control Russian registrators. In other words, their CEO Richard just send this million dollars to Putin instead of Ukraine. That will cost lives.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
(Edit: the parent comment originally read "I don't mind." It has since been abusively edited, and I've banned the account.)
Edit: It seems like he has responded to other comments but not this one.
But more importantly, what? You went through my comments, you haven't found evidence of me being against Putin and decided to point that out?
If you've been protesting your regime for years, why don't you also understand their protest?
It seems like you are both aligned here.
Different times call for different measures of protest, albeit these two people still share the same goals against the same aggressor.
In the US, Europe, etc, one's government is actually approximately representative of a large portion of the populace.
In Russia, the government is autocratic and not at all representative of the populace, so comparisons like "their government is doing a worse thing than we're doing to them" kinda falls flat.
What it sounds like is happening here is that Namecheap feels like they want to do something, and they're doing a thing that they are able to do, and something causes damage in the general direction of the intended target. Probably there are non-zero Russian state news, propaganda, etc sites that will be affected by this.
But this is clearly not a war born out of popular desire of the populace, and the collateral damage from this is huge. The amount of harm this will cause random people who may be trying to flee Russia, or to Russian opposition organizations that might now be less able to organize internal protests, almost certainly outweighs any inconvenience caused to the Putin regime.
International trade and economic sanctions hits the wealthy elite and is effective at influencing change. It's unfortunate that this inconveniences citizens but when the regime is unjustly declaring war and killing people it's one of the few moves left to make.
Something like kicking every Russian person off of a web hosting platform does not hurt those in power most. Anyone with enough resources to matter in Russian politics will have enough resources to simply employ someone to move everything over and this will barely register as a blip. This probably impacts random citizens 10x more than the people in power.
Officially removing your business from Russia is a form of boycott, and it does hurt the oligarchs who own the businesses who use the registrar.
A modern "government" is a controlled civil war in the same way a modern engine is controlled explosions. I day dream and have the stamina to engage in endless friendly debates about how we can improve or change this, but let's not pretend there's a clean way to engage with "the system" because there's not.
If you are blocking off streets, you are slowing down people getting into work, slowing down emergency services...
If you are not doing any of that, you are not getting heard and there's not much "protesting" going around.
I think GP's point was that these protests, while aligned in spirit, might actually work against each other. Non-Russian companies stopping to provide service to Russian-protesting entities will mean that they can't achieve their protest objectives anymore.
It's dehumanizing and depoliticizing and should be changed once Putin is out of power.
Protesting the war is one of them. Leaving is another.
Being complicit and dying are not the only two options.
I fail to see how protesting the war is a "way to not pay Russian taxes". Unless you specifically mean refusing to pay taxes to protest the war, which would go about as well in Russia as it would in US. Well, except that, once you get arrested, the cops are likely to "entertain" themselves by e.g. putting a gas mask on you and squeezing the hose. Or shoving a bottle into your anus. Or just beating you with rubber batons until you pass out.
Do stores refund your VAT if you have a protest sign or something?
Russia has been an authoritarian country since 2011 at the very least - and arguably longer, just of a softer variety prior to that - when the regime crushed the largest protest in Putin's times (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011%E2%80%932013_Russian_prot...). By now, it has a special branch of internal armed forces - National Guard / Rosgvardia - which is used primarily against protesters.
So yes, there's a big difference in practice.
I understand the Ukrainian invasion is sickening/a travesty but I struggle to square what appears to be an underlying hypocrisy.
In the U.S. it is even coded into the Declaration of Independence.
The world is organized by a small group of countries and power blocks that are in charge, whilst the other 90% has no meaningful economical or military relevance. This in no way makes it "more OK" to do harm, I'm just saying the selector is relevance, not race.
Of course, Putin should be condemned, but it is interesting how nobody held the US to a similar standard.
While there's a lot to criticize about US foreign policy, invading a western nation with a democratically elected government isn't on the list. You really can't sympathize with Saddam Hussein or the Taliban. I wouldn't (and didn't) stop paying taxes over it.
If the US government invaded Mexico or Canada, I might.
If you also consider examples of North Korea, Iran, Venezuela, Cuba and many other dictatorships, you'll see that isolation doesn't really correlate with regime change.
Even if isolation does not necessarily correlate with regime change that is still something that in the end gets decided within the country, not outside of it. After all, regime change is exactly what Putin was after in Ukraine so that would seem to be fair turnabout.
So out of solidarity, russian users could move their domain names out and leave it as is.
Not to spoil your evening but it is so far perfectly imaginable, though it very well could become unimaginable soon.
Edit: grammar
The 'lets start with a small nuke' aka tit-for-tat scenario has been wargamed literally to death: it ends with total annihilation.
In the country where the problem originates or in some other country?
> Do you realize how many people would suffer and even die because of that?
And yes, people will suffer, that's what happens when one country invades their neighbor in an unprovoked attack. You're placing blame in the wrong place here.
Personally I think the tax bit is thin, but I totally understand the pressure on their employees and that that does not feel right. They are waiting for the next missile impact while at the same time they are working to keep the websites of their enemy up and running, that's not something you should want or expect.
But in the absence of any ability to hurt said mortal enemy, they seem to have picked a target by association that is within their reach, so as to hurt something related to the enemy.
I understand why this is happening, but I don't see it as justifiable.
Now, domain names going away won't cause deaths, but then again they won't cause regime change.
If you have the ability to hit the Russian government where it hurts - in their money - not using it to defend your employees is as unconscionable as not picking up that rock to defend your family.
War has never differentiated between innocent and guilty in the past, nor can it differentiate today. It's a battle between governments, and people who are really hurt will always be the innocent.
Fuck war. But don't blame someone for defending themselves, their family, their employees, with the weapons they have, not the weapons you wish they had.
Could the US (UK, France, Germany, etc) hit Putin directly with a drone or missile strike? Quite possibly (though chances are pretty high that would look a lot like your "coward in a crowd" scenario).
But - pertinent to this conversation - can Namecheap's CEO hit Putin directly with a conventional weapon strike? No. He doesn't have bombs, drones, missiles, or guns. He has domain name registries and web hosting, and the ability to offer and not offer those services to others.
War is cruel.
You are welcome to name what it is.
As we speak, the whole Ukrainian economy and infrastructure is destroyed, cities are bombed, hundreds of thousands are fleeing, and people are dying in Ukraine. While you're complaining that you have to transfer your Namecheap domain names. You need to get a sense of perspective.
But oh no, we can’t do it, we can’t have prices go up when inflation is already high. So we will make life harder for Russian people who oppose the war as a feel good measure instead.
As I've said, you need to get a sense of perspective. This is the most civil way to weaken the Russian military long-term. It will work. Sorry that it also makes your companies weak. If it wouldn't, Putin would just grab the money from your companies, as the Russian government has already threatened. (Weird move, but I guess they believe they can spin this into anti-Western sentiment.)
And what would the alternative be? Putin has not only started a war against an independent nation, he has also just - indirectly, but pretty much overtly - threatened the whole world with thermonuclear war. That would also turn Russia into radioactive ashes. You think world community should just stand there and watch, do nothing?
As with a sibling commenter, you're asking the CEO to fight with the weapons you wish he had, not the weapons he has. The CEO, the company he runs, are not "the west".
Attacking my domains doesn't hurt the Russian government in any way. More than that, it has been the government's strategy to slowly close global internet to have more control.
I wasn't collecting a lot of info on this. But I can give you one small example.
https://www.indiehackers.com/product/mkdev-me/russia-blocked...
I occasionally come across websites that I cannot access.
Don't take it as a complaint. I just want to show you that the rock has been thrown not at the actual aggressor.
Just out of curiosity, how are you screwed? Is it so hard to move to a different registrar? It's not like you are being kicked out from a cloud provider, which would indeed be a pain in the ass.
People don't get to choose where they are born and describing other people and another society in such a way despite their current government is quite pathetic.
I hope others see your xenophobia and learn to treat others more respectfully.
Normally, if you pay for a service for a year and then it ends after a couple months by surprise, you could describe that as being screwed.
> 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.
Looks like a bunch of people were kicked from Namecheap's cloud services with 0 notice though. Or do you mean that these services are relatively simple, and it would be a pain to migrate from a service provider who provides much more complex services with 0 notice?
please...
Nobody hates Russians. Hell, I like Russians a lot. But this is war. World is unfair. I hope you see your "sanction" is such a minor grievance if compared to people that just died in an unjust war. That's why it would have been more elegant and with decorum just to be silent and accept this without whining that (omg!) your domain needs to move.
[0]https://www.seattletimes.com/nation-world/bad-blood-saddam-a...
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.
This is the point.
In a war, most of the people that end up fighting are innocent to some extent. This is economic warfare. This is Namecheap's volley.
Simply donating to charities helping in the conflict would help the world a lot more and you could still write your blog post if you wanted. I guess going after the customers you collected is more viral though.
They might not be bearing arms, but they are contributing to the russian economy.
Without the presence of nuclear weapons, NATO forces would be bombing moscow right now, causing significantly more economic disruption and disruption to civilians.
It's war.
First, that's a very weak justification to attack civilians. Second, how does stopping them from paying for a non-local service help?
> Without the presence of nuclear weapons, NATO forces would be bombing moscow right now, causing significantly more economic disruption and disruption to civilians.
I doubt it, there's a reason Ukraine isn't in NATO, but thank God for nuclear deterrence. I don't want WW3, some people seem to be jumping at the bit for it.
> It's war.
Not ours. I support aid, nothing else.
-- EDIT [reached post limit, replying to below] --
> It's causing a disruption and lessening the productivity of the Russian economy
No it's not, if anything now more Russians will go to domain providers based in their country, keeping the money in their economy.
> If you're Russian. It is your war.
I'm not Russian. I'm not Ukrainian. Therefore it's not my war.
>Not ours. I support aid, nothing else.
If you're Russian. It is your war.
I didn't realize we were in a total war. What's next? Drone strikes so the "economy" shrinks?
Without nukes Moscow would be under heavy bombing right now
Putin has announced recently that cross-border payments in USD and EUR are to be blocked. Which means that most Russians affected by this won't be able to pay for a registrar outside of Russia.
People here have mentioned transferring their domain names to NIC.RU, the state-owned registrar. Which means that Putin actually receives more money because of this.
Speaking of taxes. What about people who used the domains for personal use? Or for non-profit orgs?
THIS
I've paid upfront exactly because of this, I was expecting some kind of ban of cross-border bank transfers. The same reason I've paid for my VPN upfront. No one in Russia, especially those who are politically active, can't really go around without some kind of self-hosted infrastructure.
Now, should Namecheap lag even a little bit with a transfer, which I've HAD to pay for (thankfully, I was able to use other provider rather than nic.ru), I will be left without my private XMPP service, self-hosted e-mail and a lot of stuff which makes my communications at least relatively safe.
While making such moves, they just made my life more dangerous, at time when government already looks for someone on the inside to blame.
May I ask you which one you transferred your domains to?
When you cut a country off from trade, obviously some agents within that country are going to get more business.
But without SWIFT, will they have trouble to pay the ICANN fee?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sovereign_Internet_Law
Realistically how much money are we talking about?
Countries depend on each other for goods and natural resources.
North Korea is largely isolated economically and they’re not thanking the world for their self-sufficiency.
Check out Russia’s top 10 imports:
https://www.worldstopexports.com/russias-top-10-imports/
They don’t produce enough computers, machinery, vehicles, etc. to support their population.
If those imports get cut off no one is thanking Putin. You can’t just spin up a national car company or a pharmaceutical company that quickly to compensate. It’s just a loss as quality of life and consumer spending goes down, dragging the economy down with it.
Russia already tried this back when they were called the USSR and it was a disaster. Their envoys to DC thought our American grocery stores were staged because they couldn’t believe the US had fresh fruit available to the average citizen and no bare shelves.
North Korea is trying to establish itself on a foundation of self-reliance. Namecheap's actions confirm the importance of their philosophy.
Your "That’s not how global economies work." conveniently skips over that namecheap has a large number of Russian customers but probably zero NK customers. North Korea doesn't apply, except as a guide on how Putin can make Russia more self-reliant in the face of NATO.
> You can’t just spin up a national car company or a pharmaceutical company that quickly to compensate.
But Russia already has several major car companies, several major pharmaceutical companies, and several web hosting companies...
Webhosts would probably be the easiest to quickly spin up, especially since it would be company #25 or #125, not the first ones to pave the road.
You seem completely unaware of the entire 100 years of sanctions practice Russia has, as if Russia would be starting from scratch instead of their long established home grown industries.
Much like Verisign makes money for each .com/.net and Affilias makes money for each .name/.org that is registered?
Isn't the whole point of running a registry that you also get to collect some sort of fee for running the service?
You guys are nuts.
If you object to specific companies/governments using your service for wrongdoing, then address those cases individually. Pulling the rug out from an entire nation of users is horribly short-sighted and makes me question the values that made me use Namecheap in the first place.
I'd urge you to reconsider - if not I'll reconsider my business as well (not Russian related at all).
This is news to me. I've not seen anything from Prince or Cloudflare that demonstrates they thought they made a bad decision.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloudflare#Free_Speech_Debate
Sometimes people are willing to take a sub-optimal decision in order to uphold what they believe in. Not everything has to have a positive ROI or an in-depth positive risk analysis
I'd much rather do business with people with morals and integrity, than those without. That's for moral reasons and business reasons, people with morals are less likely to screw you.
Do not want to doubt your words, but there is not much moral in this.
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"?
I don’t know of many governments have have waged war in Europe recently.
You can mess around in the garden (overseas) as much as you want, as long as you keep the house clean.
That’s not fair, but it is consistent.
> That’s not fair, but it is consistent.
I guess xanaxagoras was just assuming that the CEO of Namecheap had basic human decency.
I mean, people weren't exactly fine with it, but I didn't see anyone sanctioning the US govt either.
Of course the alternative is saying that it's fine as long as it's us (western'ish world) invading them, instead of us being invaded, but that's even more hypocritical.
So basically you’re supporting - either live in a country that’s strong enough to get away with war crimes, or be ready to get fucked whenever an extra righteous American company/CEO feels whimsical!
Or even better - if you want to talk about this very topic and point out this double standard - then do that in “another thread”, right? That is some logic!
Or maybe you just want to be saying “war crimes in some countries are more kosher than war crimes in certain other countries”.
It's a joke!
Yes. To keep your account active, please simply instigate a revolution against Erdoğan and achieve regime change. Thanks.
To some degree there are just inevitable risks in life, but it's absolutely in your interest to influence your government into doing as few terrible things as possible, and to move to one that does less terrible things, and I for one think that's a very good thing.
I wonder how western people influence their governments to stop buying russian gas and make russian oligarchs even richer. Though, I agree that thrre are inevitable risks in life, I still think it’s a very ignorant thing to say, that people, who live under the dictatorship should just go and change how things are. I hope you’ll never experience living in a country where people are killed for opinions and prisoned for likes and reposts on the internet.
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'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.
You should not believe them. They might be just lying.
Most soldiers? How many remorseful POWs have you seen vs. the ~200k soldiers actively participating in the war?
Some POWs will say almost anything to not get killed and have a chance at freedom again. Just like in a trial, a statement or confession made under duress is not valid and they’re likely under extreme duress and afraid for their lives.
They are ruthless and this war is going to be absolutely ruthless if it will not stop soon. Russians had no trouble bombing and shelling sieged cities, hospitals, and even UN convoys in Syria, and they'll do it in Ukraine, too. They're alredy using cluster munitions in the city streets, shit like butterfly mines, etc., and it's going to be a lot worse once they set up heavy artilery and complete the sieges.
This time they'll not be able to lie about it in the west all that easilly, judging by the reaction in my country. Xenophobia will be less of a hindrance to seeing things clearly, at least in some eastern european countries, compared to their Syrian involvement.
But I'm already starting to see the same justifications being used to bomb the cities, as was used in Syria.
Either way, I'm noting you down for BDS.
I suggest you also employ people in Palestine, Somalia, Yemen, Iraq, Myanmar, Kashmir, etc.
The world wants Russia to leave Ukraine. BDS wants all the Jews gone from Israel which pretty much means they want them dead.
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.
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.
No it isn't
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30506536
Sanctions just give dictators more excuses to blame everything on external enemies. I honestly don't understand how anyone thinks they can work.
Make it clear to Ukraine that their only hope really is being a neutral buffer state.
Roll back the Romanian and Polish missile bases and the Turkish tracking systems.
Sign the USA back up to all the missile treaties that they have backed out of.
That ought to secure another 40 years of fragile peace in Europe.
Or we could just keep shoving weapons into the Ukraine. Wonder how that will work out? I mean weapons always make things better.
Everyone should respect government imposed sanctions and laws. Infrastructure services should not discriminate beyond that. Denying service based on nationality of the client is akin to discriminating by gender, race, or faith.
Also it’s ok to pull from any market for whatever reason, and not renewing contracts, but kicking paying customers before the term of the (prepaid) service is over is just not cool.
I was simply responding to the claim that it's impossible for the Russian people to remove Putin from office.
I have friends and acquaintances who fled, or stayed and had their eardrums blown out by flash-bangs at protests.
My friends' student was raped in prison for attempting to "take control against her own corrupt and bloodthirsty government", as you put it.
Where were you in 2020? What domains did Namecheap drop then at a week's notice in a flurry of support?
Now you are preaching to the choir (i.e. the very "IT-shniki" whose support for your position was never even in doubt), and calling them too apathetic or too meek or too unworthy.
I get it: you see suffering, in your own ranks, you have power, and you want to use that power to do good.
But please listen when we explain to you that you're revelling in scoring on your own net. This action hurts your own team and not the opposing one.
> This action hurts your own team and not the opposing one.
The majority of us in the west don't regard this as team west vs. team Russia. We regard it as democracy vs. Putin. Seeing it as anything else is playing into his rhetoric.
This action hurts the CEO’s "people who support what I support" group, and to add insult to injury his replies here malign those very same people.
Lets take a moment to examine the language you are using. The language given described the reason they feel they need to take the action they are taking even if you disagree with their reasoning but you have baselessly redefined it as "spite" and a "childish tantrum". It looks like exactly the opposite.
They have chosen as is their right not to do business with some customers and you suggest that by forcing clients to spending a few hours migrating to another providers they are "attacking them".
The only people being attacked are those who are getting shot and blown up. Tone down your rhetoric and don't make events of international and historic scope about you. Expand your perspective.
You can't have it both -- benefit from western companies and technology, but keep a leader in power that is completely indifferent to any human life and suffering other than (arguably) the one of the Russian people.
We like to think that we're all just citizens under the rule of the few, but we're all complicit in who governs us, whether we like to admit to it or not.
In the west we're all very aware that any kind of regime change in Russia will involve bloodshed amongst innocent Russian people, but that is already happening right now -- except you've exported the genocide to your neighbors, Belarus and Ukraine, and that is unacceptable.
it’s funny sometimes how can people from 1st world countries be so ignorant. We don’t and we can’t keep a leader. Russia is a totalitarian country, where elections don’t work. We cannot vote him out. Democracy doesn’t work in totalitarian regimes. That’s why they are called totalitarian. Oh and by the way, as a representative of a western country you could also help ukrain by stop buying russian gas and oil to stop sponsoring russian oligarchs. How about you go and make your government use exclusively renewable energy right now? Otherwise, it seems like this genocide in Ukrain is as much your choice as it’s a choice or russian people.
My question about the west stop buying gas left unanswered. You can’t even put your money for the heating at stake, but you are asking from russians to sacrifice their lives. How is it not hypocritical?
https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/PDF/?uri=CELE...
This is still 'de-platforming', even though there are alternatives. There are alternatives to every service that has 'de-platformed' people, but it doesn't change what you're doing.
Unlike youtube domain registration is fungible. Moving from namecheap to <insert registrar> means your computer is silently switched from talking to foo vs bar with no apparent difference to the end user.
It only becomes and effective means of deplatforming if your registrar doesn't allow you to transfer your domain or you literally can't find a registrar who will accept you.
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.
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.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
Also it does score points.
I wonder how many of their Ukrainian customers have .ru domains …
- some are trying to find their relatives in Ukraine
- some are coordinating and volunteering
- some are trying to get themselves and their families outside of Russia (which gets harder by the minute because of prices and sanctions)
- some are trying to smuggle at least some of the money outside, because their entire life savings are now blocked
- some are trying to preserve what they have despite ruble and market crashing
- some are hunkering down with what they have and their loved ones, trying to stockpile some food before prices skyrocket
and no one has any time to cope and process anything - don't forget usual workloads, too. planning for a week feels like it's already a strategic, not a tactical scope
I get what you're trying to do, but can't you at least give more time for everyone? Right now I need to drop everything and migrate my DNS as well because my private email that I use for docs will stop working in 6 days. And to figure out how to pay the transfer fees while doing all that. It's very much fucking stressful already.
edit: I've worded that badly - I'm not complaining, I'm just asking for a bit longer grace period for everyone. It's very easy to miss an email for 6 days during these times. All of these issues are obviously dwarfed by what Ukrainian people are going through right now.
Bad move.
There's been some estimates of how many votes Putin would get, if there were real elections, no vote fraud, no threats, opposition politicians hadn't been killed or imprisoned, everyone got to vote, didn't get bribed to vote on Putin -- and then from what I read, a large majority would vote against him.
This is a continuous choice by the Russian people to support men like Putin and Yeltsin, and it has massive negative consequences for the rest of the world.
Of course it makes sense to make it marginally harder to register and maintain a domain on the Internet as a result. If that’s the price a small handful of Russians have to pay for all of this, they should be infinitely grateful.
And yes, I really think the average Russian has enough resources to leave the country, because you need zero resources to stand up from your chair and walk in a direction. If you're stopped, that's not your fault, you're actively trying.
...or just be shot trying to illegally cross the border.
You’re literally suggesting some sort of self-genocide of 150 million nation.
Same if you think literally doing zero prep work to leave Russia has a high chance of success. If it's your only option, you're not thinking creatively enough.
It just seems like you're operating in a state of learned helplessness, which is immensely sad but not the only way to live.
Also please explain what “prep work” can an average Russian with monthly income about $450 can do to sucessfully leave Russia.
Until then you’re just cosplaying so you can sleep at night.
And it costs nearly nothing to legally cross a border, but yes if the options are, “Continue to live in Russia” or, “Illegally cross a border.” Then break the law.
Residence of which country you can get without having a lot of money and/or good career like IT specialist? How do you think unarmed person can illegally cross a border guarded by armed people without getting killed?
And if you don’t know what an insurgency is or how to run one, that’s on you to figure out. It is the only moral option if you’re Russian and want to stay in Russia.
“Lol just figure out how to overthrow heavily militarized government” is completely ignoring the obvious truth that this is simply impossible. It was probably possible some years ago with support from abroad, but the only thing international institutions cared about was cheap natural gas and oil, so they ignored violations of international law and treated Putin as a lawful president. So now we have decapitated opposition, silenced media (just today two independent media were banned) and 2% of Russians serving in police and military. It stops any seeds of revolution from ever growing.
It sounds like you're comfortable where you are, and need to justify it to yourself that your country is using your consent to commit atrocities that you're ultimately okay with as long as you remain comfortable.
That's cowardice.
Money used to invade Ukraine mostly comes from other countries buying Russian natural resources. If you want to stop the invasion, go and protest against _your_ government to make it stop buying Russian oil.
I’m staying so I can protest and try to sway the current governments intentions. It’s hard and dangerous, but it has more chances to succeed than overthrowing the government. I’m staying so I can help the protestors. I’m staying so I can actually _do_ something about the situation. Leaving the country is actually easy for me (unlike most Russian citizens), but I don’t think it’s the morally right action.
I think that says a lot about how you really feel, and it's not good.
What a horrific and insensitive comment. Christ…
I don’t think this is even close to the level of accountability necessary for the Russian people to see the gravity of their mistake.
You deserve isolation, in my opinion, for your marginal part supporting a system of corruption and mass murder. Some very small amount of Ukranian blood is on your hands, and that means you pay this minor economic cost.
I have nothing but contempt for you.
It’s naïve as hell to think the Russian people aren’t complicit in their government’s actions; Putin is not a dictator, and he is not the only evil actor in Russian government.
Collective punishment for the actions of the collective is not wrong, but a great way of meting out justice to those who have acted morally wrong, as the Russian people have.
You may have contempt for me, but I hold disgust and malice for the Russians here acting like they’re blameless for what’s happening in Ukraine; they’re just as proportionally responsible as Putin. He’s their leader, he’s their fault.
Also, I don't know what country you're in, but there is a HIGH chance that you do NOT want to be held accountable for the crimes it committed and will continue to commit.
Sorry but no. This regime exists because the Russian people allow it to exist, full stop. If you think there’s nothing you can do, that’s just your cowardice talking. The Ukranians are proving that one hundred fold.
> Please don't post insinuations about astroturfing, shilling, bots, brigading, foreign agents and the like. It degrades discussion and is usually mistaken. If you're worried about abuse, email hn@ycombinator.com and we'll look at the data.
It is alarming how quickly this has shifted to open acknowledgment: "yeah, these measures are meant to punish ordinary people until they sacrifice their lives for regime change." This has always been the subtext, but I haven't seen it wielded so freely like this.
I wonder if this situation will change the framing of sanctions in other countries. Maybe we can stop pretending that sanctions aren't strictly meant to bend the population until they break.
The mask have been taken off. All we see is the cold face of war.
Something like that said the president of Finland. And the diplomatic paths were tried for months already.
We (the west) all know that sanctions are going to hit ordinary Russians, but also people outside the Russia. Nothing to compare with horrors in Ukraine. But it looks like we have currently no other option. Are we sliding to a new world war. That is what we try to avoid. We are already sending weapons but non-acting would seem we support the war Russia has started. Putin has went so far that it is unlikely that he will stop. We hope the change comes from the inside, and that he is stopped. I know, it is a naive thought.
This is a lose-lose situation for everyone.
At the same time we are in danger of escalating energy crisis, banking crisis and the climate change.
I think this was always an excuse by economic interests trying to limit the scope of sanctions in hopes of reducing the business impact, at least that's how I've read it.
Sanctions are a flexible tool of warfare that scales from targeting leaders, to damaging the enemy's ability to replenish supplies, to total economic collapse so as to destroy the state's ability to function.
"If more grace time is necessary for some to move, we will provide it."
The overall picture I get in Western media is that Russians are being dragged into this against their will by Putin. People have started calling for sanctions on certain regime members and supporters, but have so far avoided more broadly demonizing the Russian populace. I hope it stays that way.
Good luck.
Not only do they more broadly believe Ukraine isn’t a legitimate country independent of Russia, they’re also more likely to perceive threats from the west and the potential for Ukraine to become a contributor to the threat very quickly. They’ve witnessed conflicts materializing very quickly in the past, and they’re aware it could happen again. Ukraine has dramatically improved their military training, equipment, and size since Crimea. Given that alone it’s clear to see how many Russians might see Ukraine as a threat with their non-NATO status and demilitarization not being guaranteed.
Having said that, it seems Putin has been trying to encourage acceptance of war in Russia for months because evidently there isn’t a broad enough acceptance as it is. At least from the government’s perspective, as they’ve been planning this war for quite a while. I believe the necessity of the war from their perspective came sooner than expected, otherwise they likely would have been seeding the idea of the need for war much earlier. I’m not sure.
So there are certainly a lot of Russian people who believe the war is justified. I’m not sure what the ratios of for/neutral/against are, but I suspect they’re not especially lopsided. Unfortunately. It doesn’t seem there’s significant reason to believe Putin will back down, or that Russian people will force him to.
I was born in Russia and emigrated in 1999. Till then, I only heard about the glory days of USSR and how we liberated the world of evil.
I moved to Czech Republic and went straight to school. Little did I know that Russia has a bad rep by being an occupant as well as textbooks describing completely different picture of the world. Including the facts of red army raping everything in their way to Berlin's parliament building.
If you would have grown up subject to propaganda for more than 30 years, you would probably turn out in a similar way.
Asking a person to think independently without expanding their peripheral brain thinking is super hard and almost impossible IMO. Curious if there are any scientific studies how to do it.
I am not defending people for "not-knowing" just trying to paint the picture of how it was living and growing up there compared to the rest of the world. All my friends who left Russia are against the war. Unfortunately the divide is also growing in Russia and I had to forgo several people I knew from childhood because they are adamant on war being justified and I am sure I am not the only one.
Years of brainwashing... also partially the reason why people haven't revolted already.
Brainwashing is certainly a term that comes to mind as I learn more about this, but one I have a hard time using since it can seem sort of like a slur from here in Canada. The truth is though that it seems us here in North America are somewhat brainwashed to fear and resent many parts of the world as well, including Russia. It’s scary. As I’ve tried to make sense of this by asking questions or generally discussing the current conflict online, I’ve been attacked for being pro-Putin or a Russian troll several times. I’m nothing of the sort, I never take a side, and I do my best to be objective, but many of the people I live with here are furious if you aren’t laser-focused on condemning the war and Russia. I’m absolutely opposed to the war, but banging that drum eternally doesn’t help me understand it any better.
Regardless, you’re making a great point. Questioning the war would be difficult for any human being if they were raised in a culture in which it was justifiable. How many Americans supported the Iraq war which ended as an abject failure with very little support? All that changed was that people were forced to face reality. The war didn’t make any more or less sense from the day it started. It’s easy to criticize Russia from across the world, but they’re no different from us here in Canada or the USA in that sense. As you mentioned, it’s remarkably difficult to break out of the sort of cultural mould we’re born and raised in.
Thanks for the response. I hope the friends and family you left in Russia are safe, whether they support the war or not.
And now I know why it's not being taught more widely, despite the obvious economic advantages this could provide. You don't want the population to be able to speak to their 'enemies' or read news from the other side easily. It's pretty obvious now the mad lunatic has been preparing the country for what's happening for about a decade, and he truly believed when he talked about the 'encirclement' and 'sending nukes to Florida'.
For exemple a simple brainwashing illustration in the west is the fact that Imperalism is synonym to weapons/war/bombs and all things related to military. While indeed the biggest treat and real imperalism is culural and linguistic.
Hollywood and affiliates are bigger treat than any US Battaillon into subverting and destroying nation.
And it's even more dangerous because im an active actor of my own subvertion, of my own languistic and cultural destruction like im forced to use English (not my native language to expose my opinion here)
For dictators.
Read and understand your brainwashing
If the people like a certain forms of culture more than others, well, then that's there preference and their freedom to choose. It doesn't harm anybody, and if you have something better to offer, go and tell people. Let them decide if they like it or not. That's not going to happen with tanks and bombs.
Has anybody ever died from speaking or listening to English? As ugly a language as it is, I prefer that 1,000,000 over having a grenade explode in my front porch.
Precisely. Imagine your area of knowledge is like a circle, you think you kind of get 80% of it in terms of worldview and subjective opinions. Now some random people come in and saying you are wrong and there is this other big circle which is in order of magnitude 100x bigger which shrinks your knowledge and understanding. Its very difficult to recognise that we might not be understanding all the things. But just being open for trying to get the other side helps tremendously. Even understanding the root cause of why perhaps people even think that way?
It's kind of scary... and we tend to block the scary things. Because well... its easier.
The issue in the conflict such as this is that it's never black and white. And if someone is telling you that you are pro-putin by just not condemning Russia without hearing your reasons or just blatantly attacking you - thats very short-sighted and personally I just end the debate right there, because its not up to my standards of rationality.
There are obviously now messages coming through condemning US and EU for their actions in various conflicts in Iraq, Syria, Palestine, Kosovo etc. And again, what is right and what is wrong? Never that easy to say - all depends on your personal context.
I wish we could have a conversation something like that: - Ok lets look at the claims: - Claim X - Claim Y - Claim Z
Alright, claim Y is not that simple, because remember what happened was A, B, C.
Ok valid point, but B is also not so certain because of G.
I feel like our world really needs more education on critical-thinking and meta-learning.
However strongly I am angered and scared by the current attack on Ukraine, I am also deeply shaken by questioning my own views. If one nation can be brainwashed into thinking that they are saving Ukraine from fascists, and they do not know they are brainwashed and think the other side is brainwashed... what am I brainwashed into? I already know I was also deceived big time (I totally believed that lie about WMDs in Iraq), what else is there? And I know that it can be argued that "western media" is more open and pluralistic, but don't Russians think the same about their media?
After seeing Brexit, Donald Trump, Covid, now Ukraine... we humans really need to figure out how to improve our ability to converge on models of reality closer to what really happens.
Anyway, thank you for shedding some light on the views from someone closer to Russia.
With Ukraine, hundreds of countries are all seeing the same thing, independent journalists are watching.
There is no justification for escalating to a war which is what Putin has done. If he had sent troops into the regions already contested you could maybe argue that (even then it would be tenuous).
Western media isn’t controlled by the state but frequently acts in service to it. See Manufacturing Consent, by Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky.
I'm not naive (but far from an expert). There are all kinds of problems with western democracy, capitalism and the media (in no particular order).
There is a vast difference between the 'western media problems' and the propaganda coming out of Russia though.
The narratives around refugees in Australia are a very good example at least one of the problems with western media. Referring to refugees as 'Illegal' has led to them being locked up off-shore for extended periods of time (6+ years in some cases).
We all have our biases, I wonder if journalists are so diligent to be thorough and re-evaluate things they assume to be X to make sure it's really X, but I doubt it.
It's a good idea, but people with power and money have an agenda, and their agenda is often not in sync with current reality. They want their agenda to be future reality, and suppress current reality to get there. Just my opinion.
Oh please. I'm all on board with criticizing the war, criticizing the human rights abuses, criticizing the megalomaniac Putin.
But once you go into this kind of criticism, you start the same propaganda you are criticizing Putin of. Make a difference between a corrupt regime and the country, the people. If you really want to make the point of the "whole country" being based on war, you need to be fair and do that to every country. The U.S.? Based on genocide of the natives, slavery and oppression of Africans and now playing world police bullying everybody who does not want to play along. China? Thousands of years of history of basing their power on war or the threat of it. British Empire? India?
Please, let's just not go there.
Unfortunately, this is profoundly incorrect. I know a lot of young(-ish) educated Russians, and at least 50% (by my estimate) kind of agree with Putin that "they were left no other choice".
And even if you make the effort to evaluate both sides objectively, having too much information in any language doesn't work that great either. Most people aren't equipped to properly select their information sources, to parse everything and discriminate fact from feeling, propaganda from truthful reporting. To highlight how difficult it is, this happens at scale even in the most civilized of countries, with solid education systems, and freedom of speech and press.
Most people tend to choose sides which become core to their beliefs, and are reluctant to reconsider ever again. Once they picked a side it's "just" a matter of selecting the information that supports it. This is why the same person can read the same information and decide whether it's good or bad based on who did it rather than what was done? Some people read "country X bombed school in country Y" and purely depending on their "allegiance" will decide whether the school was full of terrorists or the bomb was launched by terrorists.
Whatever you do to change that will earn you the label of "other side's troll" (sometimes, ironically, from both sides) and you quickly learn that freedom of speech only works when you exercise it in your own bubble, thus reinforcing that bubble.
I hope it is not an argument againt freedom of speach?
I wonder what are your conclusion on how to tackle the problem? Because I ask myself this question regularly when I observe both sides arguing on the topic of free speach. But it’s very hard for me to be against free speach.
Education (and future to be invented tools) isn’t any magical stick, but the best I can think of for the long term.
possibly tools like: having feed filtering algorithms also implemented clients side. You’ll always be in some sort of bubble, but having more say in it (like many inventions have evolved). This of course creates new challenged, but that’s a natural thing
I grew up in South America. If you knew the kind of crap we are fed by our own very teachers that vilify american citizens as invading thieves without any care to make a distinction about the people and the government. I clearly remember during a certain heavy metal concert the keyboard player innocently tried to make a solo of the country national hymn followed by the american hymn and he was attacked by an angry mob of retards throwing things while literally chanting "Bin Laden". And yeah I was young and I thought "the yankee bastard had it coming".
I was in my 30s when I started realizing its all bullshit and the american people don't really have a say about the atrocities their government is causing in foreign lands. We've been fed with propaganda and programmed to hate people we don't know.
Attacking individuals personally is no way to express your feelings about this situation. Everyone with any connection to it is in a high emotional state right now. Having HN community members get aggressive with their fellow community members only makes things worse.
Nationalistic attacks aren't allowed either, and you crossed that line too. We're not practicing collective punishment here, as long as I have anything to say about this place.
I know it's hard to stay tolerant in the presence of strong feelings, but that's what commenters here are asked to do—and if anyone can't do it, they should refrain from posting until they can.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
I suppose that's somewhat metaphoric for the philosophical differences in how authoritarian rule manifests vs. whatever it is we call it in the West.
I have empathy for everyone in Russia who is going through hardship during this time.
silently losing your email address because you've missed one email in that rush sounds very very bad, esp if you're waiting for some important documents that can make or break your life/immigration/whatever.
I see many stories of people mobilizing to help Ukrainian refugees however they can and those are great; I hope those of you getting caught in the chaos on the russian side can also find compassion from someone, in what I imagine is just the start of these coarse collateral-damage-prone punishment-minded moves (well intentioned as they may be).
I'm pro-siege, because I see Russian activists as collateral damage to stopping the machine, but it's not their individual fault they can't overthrow an authoritarian government.
You might as well say "just assassinate Putin, it's much easier".
But agreed that figuring out something to do would be good
Dictatorship is a form of government.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monday_demonstrations_in_East_...
There was an ECHR decision ordering Russia to free Navalny, but it was ignored by Russian government and Council of Europe did nothing about it.
One thing he can do, is to kill a few, give it lots of press, and it'll seem to people as if they'll get killed they too if they cause problems
So tell us what we should do instead of sanctions?
This shit isn't even targeted at the oligarchs, only Russian people
If you're serving the like of RT.com then redirect that to somewhere truthful yesterday, but turning the screws on individuals feeds right into Putin's censorship goals. At least consider moving your deadline back to something more graceful like 60 or even 30 days.
It has been said that exceptions can and will be made.
Though I suspect it might not be as easy as just asking because if it was everyone would just ask, so those needing an exception will at least need to take time to formulate an explanation, and wait for responses, etc.
Not ideal, but IMO understandable from namecheap's position.
Or what is the appropriate anti-Putin a customer must have to be allowed to use your company's services?
It's no longer a reliable platform, or rather it never was.
You're hurting a lot of people who are using foreign services because they want to limit their exposure to Putin's regime.
The Russian state doesn't use Namecheap. Do you really think the negatives could be outweighed by some positive here?
I'm 100% supportive of Namecheap's actions in this.
I applaud your action, but I think you should give private individuals with registered domains the benefit of the doubt for now and concentrate on companies, also I think that the tax angle is weak. The dissonance to have your employees' lives at risk from the very same Russians that are looking to get some customer support is the main factor I think.
(copy/paste from the page):
> Find easy inspiration on your way to the Ukraine offices each day, whether it’s the ornate architecture in Lviv, the vibrant student community in Kharkiv, or the many waterfront parks in Dnipro. Here you’ll join the central hub for our Product, Technology, and Customer Support teams, where we work closely with our longtime strategic partner, Zone3000.
I think they might come back to Namecheap as a result of this.
The regime in Russia is much more likely to topple if Russia is quickly isolated. It is painful to individuals there, but it's also the right thing to do.
This is the real problem in the current situation - everybody is trying outplay each other by using different kind of force (military, economical) and nobody wants to sit down, listen to each other's concerns and try to develop some acceptable peaceful solution together.
After the events of the last few days, it would seem you are quite mistaken if you think the west as a whole is interested in "developing a peaceful solution together" with Russia. We are first and foremost extricating our economy entirely from Russia at least in the short to medium term. I think you fail to grasp that this is now being seen as an idealogical conflict, not a conventional rivalry between fundamentally like-minded foes. At least as long as the current Russian regime is in power.
I think it is absolutely the other way around. If you isolate regular Russians from the information and will not let them communicate with the rest of the world Putin will be the first to send you thank you card.
Look at all the international crying when China puts firewalls. Meanwhile you are advocating basically the same thing.
I wouldn't support 75 years of isolation in Russia, but a country in free fall might lead to regime change in the not-too-distant-future. I want Putin out. I can see scenarios by which he's out in weeks, months, or a few years.
Even more, I want Lukashenko out before Belarus is a nuclear power. Right now, we could affect regime change without nuclear consequences. That option leaves the table soon.
I'm so sorry you have to live under these conditions. You don't need to compare yourself to the suffering of the Ukrainian people. You're also in pain.
Have you thought about leaving? Can you and your family and friends easily emigrate?
I hope the best for you too.
When you have real family and friend connection - you can never "easily emigrate". There is always a relative to a relative and a close friend with relatives, which adds up quickly and the bigger the group, the harder to move or find asylum at all. And which state would be willing to welcome russians, when there is so much talk again about collective punishment?
And how to get your assets out, when both the russian state as well as the western states are trying to block exactly this?
I doubt there is an "easy way" for ordinary people to get out.
And even if it didn't result in a backlash that removes Putin from power, chipping away at Russia's economic, technology, and military/industrial strength still greatly reduces his ability to wage more wars of aggression in the future.
ETA: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-russia-politics-emigratio...
I know. It's awful. If we can't get Russia to stop attacking Ukraine with bombs, tanks, guns and missiles, perhaps we could convince the EU to stop bombing Ukraine? Oh, wait...
Invading a country != denying visas to citizens of a country that's doing the invading.
Stay where you are and you may be murdered by an invading force != stay where you are and deal with the results of sanctions.
Both are definitely bad, but they are in no way equivalent.
I do not think that is the case
they're people, just like everyone else, and your ordinary person can obviously tell which of the two aforementioned scenarios is way, way, way worse than the other
What is severe about switching registrars for you?
I know the other sanctions are extremely painful for the Russian people, but I think of it like this: you are the victim of an economic war, and it is the alternative to a physical war, where you would be bombed to death.
I would say that both sides of the pain you're feeling (from NATO and from Russia) are both Putin's fault.
If enough people get inconvenienced that would normally not think twice, maybe there is a chance it will turn their heads to think for a second about what is happening around them.
There are thousands of people 'getting it' being arrested on the streets of Moscow.
For now. That could well change though.
You're punishing people for reasons they have zero control over. If you actually want to help, pick up a gun and go to Kiev.
But yeah, waiting for you to stop services in the US. Going to move my domains as well (despite not living in Russia) and advocate to everyone who I know to do the same.
A little free advice worth what you paid from a former CEO to a current: Now is the time for you to be a strong leader and show courage and respect to those around you. Make your hard decisions (!) but respect those challenging them, especially in a public forum with many of your customers (of which I am one). I'll stick with you though (for now?) because I know the pressure on leaders even aside from unprecedented times.
- Aim of sanctions is to turn Russians against Putin.
- Obviously, you want to target those that don't already hate Putin (no point in preaching to the choir).
- Sanctions should be felt, but should also direct more anger at government than the entity doing sanctions.
- For example, sanctioning a hospital or stopping medical supplies into Russia would be a stupid sanction.
- Second, you want to focus them on people who have sway. Most sanctions are focused on the wealthy and influential Russians. Forbidding oligarchs from living luxury lives in Europe is a good one.
- Your Russian users are very unlikely to hold any sway over Putin, and I'd bet 95% of them already hate Putin (no need to convince them) -- it's a tech crowd.
- My guess is that the vast majority of Namecheap customer's are exactly the ones that will protest against Putin, or organize information campaigns against him. Removing their means of communication won't advance your objective.
- If EU/US would sanction Kasparov or Navalny that would be a 0 IQ move, it's just an extremely dumb thing. This is sort of along those lines.
(I'm not Russian btw, I live in another European country and not a customer)
Ukraine themselves understand how to fight the information war. You treat your prisoners of war well, give them tea and let them call their parents. They'll tell their parents that Putin sent them on a murder campaign on a neighbor, and that they're lucky to be alive and treated well.
That's how you play the game.
No, we're way past this with things like leading semiconductor manufacturers stopping deliveries to any Russian entity. The goal has shifted to depriving Russia of resources needed to wage a war. Soon Russians will be so poor that their government will have their hands full keeping domestic dissent under control, and hopefully won't be able to wage foreign wars.
This is cancer treatment on a global scale. Unfortunately, it damages not only the tumor, but rest of the body as well, but there are no other options left.
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.
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?
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
I just wanted to voice that I think this is a moral decision and though I am happy with my current registrar, I am going to consider switching to Namecheap, or at least using you guys next time I register a new domain.
Not at all. It’s this particular message and phrasing that rubs me entirely the wrong way.
As well as all the people here that claim Russians should have done more to stop this.
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.
Oh, and let me give you some prerequisites:
1. You can’t use mass media to spread your message. Independent mass media are banned. There’re some leftover newspapers like Meduza and Novaya, but they’re niche and can be easily banned too.
2. Firearms are banned and it’s expensive to acquire one illegally. While rich person probably could arm, like, 10 people, it’s impossible to raise an army without massive funding.
3. You can’t rely on international organizations. When Navalny was jailed, Council of Europe had done precisely nothing to enforce ECHR decision to free him.
4. You can’t have visible leaders of opposition, because they would be murdered (like Nemtsov), jailed (like Navalny) or forced to leave the country (like Sobol).
5. 2% of the country population is serving in some kind of armed forces or law enforcement. They’re well paid, receive huge benefits and are ready to detain, torture and kill protestors. There’s a National Guard (340k people) which specifically exists for that purpose.
6. Elections are not working. They’re rigged, and opposition forces are banned from participating in them anyway. Every big party publicly supports war.
7. Mass protests on the scale of 100-200k don’t achieve anything. We don’t know if bigger protests would have any effect, but given [1] and [4] it’s unclear how to organize them. Protesting is illegal. Mass protests usefulness to influence the public opinion is limited, because media consistently underreports amount of people present.
Given that set of constraints: what would you do? I’m actually interested in your reply. If you think you would do better if you were Russian, what that “better” is?
I know that seems glib, but it's not. Unlike a lot of others in the West, I recognize and feel how cruel it is that when the world is in these situations it always seems to be the Russian commoners who we ask to make the biggest sacrifices. I recognized this even when I was a kid in U.S. school being taught the "narrative" of U.S. sailing across the oceans to make huge sacrifices to save the world... I know the West owes Russia a lot, and that's not something we like to talk about because it makes us uncomfortable. I ascribe to the theory that since the end of the Renaissance, "how good things are in the world at large" is tightly correlated with "how good things are for Russian serfs/commoners" and one of the most efficient ways to achieve the former is to improve the latter. So I'm not entirely callous to how hard it is and in the end I want Russia and her people to prosper....
But: We're in a crap situation right now and Russia put us here. Russia is a nation of people and those people can't enjoy the privileges of the Global Economy and Technological Revolutions while the nation they constitute tries to burn that world down. That's a tough pill to swallow.. we tend to get used to the things around us and treat them as "owed to us": The internet, thriving economies, banks... but it's not. You can lose it all, and so can the entire world.
So here we are in Stalingrad again. I'm sorry we put you here, disarmed in front of a maniac's henchmen cutting their way through innocent people's lives. I'll admit: I didn't do enough to pay attention to Navalny... we had our own mission and our own madman we had to stop. But here we are playing Shostakovich again and asking Russians to charge into the rubble and attack the enemies of civilization again with their whatever rocks or weapons they can pick up along the way.
So I'm not going to ask you to do anything, I guess. If you want to sit and rock back and forth with your head in your hands because it seems hopeless, I can't blame you. I don't know that I would be capable of doing anything different in your situation, to be perfectly honest.
но я не русский
And while we’re fighting an uphill war, world does everything to help Putin.
World buys Russian oil and gas, so Putin has money.
World don’t enforce international treaties, so Putin can jail anyone even if ECHR said no.
And now world stop selling goods and services to Russians, so
1. Money stays in Russia
2. Putin gets to claim “the West hates you” in propaganda and it sounds very plausible
3. The opposition has additional problems, so less time to do something useful
Isolation helps tyranicall regimes, not hinders them! NameCheap (and now many more companies) are literally helping Putin to stay in power. Taking resources from Russian people doesn’t “motivate us to revolt”, it takes resources to revolt from us.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Rose
Counter point: Look at West Germany and Japan after WWII. The West changed tack pretty quickly after the war ended. The West wasn’t against the people, they were against the ruling parties and the infrastructure/policies that supported it.
If it’s possible to punish an authoritarian aggressor without harming the citizens, I’d love to hear ideas. But in Germany and Japan, the average citizen paid a huge price for getting caught up on the wrong side of the war and I’m not sure how much differently it could have been done without countering the unprovoked aggression of both nations of which other country’s citizens paid a huge price.
Ah yea if we exclude things like 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
It is necessary to put sanctions against the entire country, but there’s a reason why foreign policy is executed by government, not by individuals.
If this situation ends up with the collapse of the Putin regime, I hope that the West doesn't repeat the mistakes of the 90s and actually comes with real help to create a strong, confident, freer Russia.
If having to transfer a domain sends someone scurrying to Putin, they were far from innocent to start with.
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.
To everyone complaining, have you first tried to contact support and explained your situation? It's clear that Namecheap will talk to you to understand your situation and help where it can. It's also one of the reasons why I switched to them many years back. Not every company hides behind their nameless, automated robots.
Spending hours writing emails back and forth in my non-native language is not exactly my top priority at the moment, as you may guess because of recent events.
The email is very clear: I have to move regardless of my views or opinions, or else. ToS is very standard as well: service may be interrupted at any moment with no guarantees, all discussion is to happen in US courts.
I see no basis for a support ticket.
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.
Outside of the unprovoked war, there are a few very novel things going on: Putin threatening a nuclear 1st strike, EU banning Russian aircraft and naval vessels, disconnecting Russia from SWIFT, major companies divesting their Russian assets, Russia banning foreign current withdrawals, Germany massively boosting their defense funds, EU nations openly donating weapons to fight the Russian invasion, Russian stock market refusing to open, Russia banned from the World Cup and other sporting events, etc.
There are some major, major world events happening. It’s gonna get a little bumpy.
This announcement seems like one of the least surprising or least world-changing events of the last 96 hours.
And my outrage is also in sync with yours as long as we are talking about children in the white little backyard of Europe. Other places? Other war crimes? For that we’ll outrage on Reddit. Join us.
If America were at this moment dropping paratroopers into Canadian cities and trying to hunt down the Canadian government, and 70% of the Namecheap workforce lived in Canada, would you still consider that just a 'political view' on 'some geopolitical event' or something more consequential and relevant to the company?
Incidentally I am in the process of transferring a domain to namecheap today.
Speaking as a Namecheap customer for several years now.
I just learnt in hard way that I am blamed for being Russian citizen(by ethnicity I’m not Russian), even if I live, work, pay all taxes in the UK?
How it’s different from nazis blaming Jewish for being Jewish?
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.
Maybe the CEO’s stance is: I won’t do business with a country that annexes another non-aggressive country through violence.
Otherwise the Kingdom of Hawaii might have something to say.
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.
FTFY, but what's your point? Just about every state on planet earth came about through violence.
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.
All the Americans in here who think this could never be our problem are 100% wrong.
(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...)
this whole thread and people's responses disgust me, people saying they're virtue signaling, and that it's "bad business practice" to cut off services like that. They're in a warzone and this is what people are upset about?!
I understand you have a lot of employees in Ukraine and you have to show support. Your heart is in the right place. I empathize and would try to do the same if I was in your shoes. But you didn't do a good job here, unfortunately.
When gitlab had to make a similar move [0] at least they had a good excuse — security of their customers' data.
Your message does not make any excuses like that. You straight up equate being russian / living in russia / whatever it is with supporting the war. You fell victim to the same primitive xenophobic thinking you're claiming to condemn.
This is a bad decision. Being a CEO is a tough job, but I think you could do better. I wish you luck.
[0] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21437334
For additional context to readers, according to LinkedIn 834 of 1,137 employees (73.35%) are located in Ukraine.
https://www.linkedin.com/company/namecheap-inc/people/
From parent:
>I sympathize with people that are not pro regime but ultimately even those tax dollars they may generate go to the regime.
We ban accounts that do this, so please don't do it again.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
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.
I'm a US citizen, so roughly half of my gross income goes to support US war crimes. It seems like I should move off of Namecheap now to avoid disruption to my service in the event that you ever grow a spine.
That's unlikely, cf. https://www.cbpp.org/research/federal-budget/where-do-our-fe....
How anyone would support this is beyond me. New world order virtue signalling at it fullest.
This war has a non-zero chance of becoming a nuclear war that ends all human life on Earth. If you don't care about it, you must not care about anything at all, including your own life.
There aren't that many people who would boycott a business that decides to stop offering services in Russia and there are even fewer who can watch Ukrainian bodies pile up without emotion, so I'm pretty sure Namecheap doesn't mind losing customers like you.
You said everything you had to. Wow.
As I've said, I'm not russian.
ok. that's your problem.
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.
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.
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.
OP is not deflecting criticisms of Russia, OP is pointing out that the claim that NC is taking a principled stance is blatantly false. Obviously NC can still choose to proceed since they believe that this is a net benefit, but they cannot claim it is a principled stance.
[0] https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/whataboutism
> And perfect consistency is the enemy of improving short-term outcomes.
Sure, I can agree with that point. But everyone can agree that pointing out inconsistency is definitionally not whataboutism.
I don't really know how to address the meat of your point, in that I think OP's point is a perfectly legitimate one and you don't, and I think it is unlikely that I would ever be able to convince you (and you will certainly never be able to convince me).
Address it, don't dismiss it.
The topic of discussion is not whether or not the Russian invasion of Ukraine is bad. If it was, your argument would be applicable.
This topic is analogous to "selective enforcement" from police. If a policeman typically jails blacks but gives whites a warning for the same crime, this is bad, and should be acknowledged as such. Same here.
Are you suggesting that the hypocrisy is?
The act of pointing out whataboutism are usually done so the hypocritical side can take refuge and refute any discussion. This often happen because hypocrisy is real - otherwise it would be easy to refute the equivalence instead.
It does sometimes gets you somewhere. Hypocrisy implies the (often moral) concern over the accusation is not a genuine one, that the accusers are merely criticising to advance their agenda. If an agenda is involved, then whatever the accuser says should be taken with some grain of salt.
In case of Namecheap: it’s 100% complete bullshit when they say they hate war & invasions, and people are calling them out on that. Instead, they should say “we prefer when US invades, because we hate Russia” which would be much closer to the truth.
See how two can play at this absolutely pointless game of offering pithy remarks without any argument behind them?
Making statements that are hypocritical cheapens discourse, and we can and should have more substantive conversations here.
https://thenib.com/mister-gotcha/
I for one like this. If you are a shitty citizen in our increasing global world, one positive benefit of globalization is the many ways that that global world can now bite you in the ass.
There is no excuse for wars of aggression. And in the past people would throw their hands up and say "well what can I do?" Well we are all connected now, so increasingly there is something you can do.
You may have blinked and missed it, but it just did. The US has weaponized global finance to an unprecedented level. Russian loans denominated in FX will all default. The stock market is cratering as soon as they are brave enough to open it back up. The ruble is going to be worth less than it was an hour ago. The Great Russian Experiment is underway.
A lot of people are making assumptions about this being a purely PR "woke" move of some kind, ignoring this: https://www.namecheap.com/careers/ukraine
Seems pretty personal to me. If I or my people were actively being bombed by an invading force, I'd take it personally, too. And then I'd take action about it.
Go on their website, they operate in 4 countries.
US: 40 people
Portugal: 70 people
Ukraine: 1700 people
India: 70 people
Classic American company delocalizing everything and now crying because all the engineering is based in Ukraine.
You put all the eggs in one basket and now you complain that they broke? Ukraine is in a conflict with Russia not from yesterday, it has been years from the Crimea case.
The CEO of this company never had a thought about de-risking his over reliance on Ukrainian talent to run his company? Or was just too cheap to keep the location there and pocket the difference in added value created by these talents?
From a business and operational point of view is just a silly move to have your business in one country, especially when you claim to be a "US business"
To me look like that of US here you've only a pool of directors, is more a Ukrainian company to me. Many Ukrainian companies have been hit as well, but they're not multinational businesses and don't use HN to voice their concern.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not justifying the war or anything. But from a business point of view, if I were the CEO I would've opened another office somewhere else and transfer know how from the Ukraine branch given that the situation with Russia has been tense for a decade now.
I hope this explains it
It's not surprising that wars cause fractures in international dealings. That seems like the exact kind of thing they would bring. The problem is the war itself, not that every participant of the international economy isn't a perfectly-neutral profit generator.
I can see why someone might want to run their own business as a perfectly-neutral profit generator but I can't imagine others faulting someone else for not doing so.
If 100% of your business is based in a country that has been threatened to be invaded many times and also had been attacked 8 years ago and you still think is ok go have 100% of your engineering and core business there then is your problem.
You don't know what Risk management? Business continuity?
Is the same reason why you don't deploy your DB in one PC in your basement and hope that nothing happened. If you get flooded and you didn't have a plan to recover is your sole responsibility.
The same goes business wise
To me the move is like: "well now I've no way to do by business because my engineering and the core team is under bomb shelter, so lets ban the Russian customers because I'm pissed"
They can do that if they're happy with it, I'm with you on this.
I sympathise with Namecheap's CEO, and had I been anything more than a grad student, I'd have done similar.
Just because they don't cut off the American government, especially Texas, from services, doesn't mean that they can't stand against Russia. This is a blatant false dichotomy. In addition, I 100% blame every tax-payer of Texas for the human rights violations going on there, even those who would call themselves liberals.
Vote with your wallets. Leave.
Is shooting at neighbor worse than shooting at people half over the world (or they don't count because of wrong skin color)?
Through oversimplification you can argue that anything is the same as its opposite.
We don't have to build a wall to keep our people in. Or our allies for that matter.
The problem with this kind of whatabboutism is that the US invades places run by morally reprehensible people. To keep the comparison with Ukraine going, you've either got to convince us that Saddam Hussein was a nice guy, or Zelenskyy is a butcher. Everyone knows that's bullshit.
What's happening in Ukraine is reprehensible - but the result of US policy blunders in places like Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, numerous South American countries and the like has been more damaging for the world we live in IMO.
While this isn't an apples to apples comparison, maybe you've got to convince us that the people of Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran, etc. are better off after US involvement. From my perspective, the answer is an obvious 'no'. Even under Saddam Hussein (who was a dictator and evil person - I'm in agreement there) the people of Iraq, who lived under some repression in their daily lives, were better off than before the US invasion.
In Iraq, about a third of the population (the Kurds) are unequivocally better off. About a third (he Shias) are arguable. The Sunnis, no, but they were the ones beating up the others. The final history hasn't been written yet (and it could get worse, no question). Still, the story is incompetence rather than malevolence. Marching in and killing Hussein is easily defensible on moral grounds. The chaos after is not.
Blunders in Latin America have to be taken on a case-by-case basis. Mostly they involved supporting one side or another in an existing civil war. The worst excesses predate WW2.
Nobody claims that the US has an angelic past, but comparison to Putin's Russia is not apt.
So a Mexican invasion when Trump was President would have been okay? Only if rest of the World knew...
Iraq was a nation that had invaded and annexed a neighboring country, a scorched earth retreat, committed domestic human rights abuses, had attempted to acquire various WMDs in the recent past, and had perpetrated chemical weapon attacks. Afghanistan was knowingly sheltering a group that repeatedly targeted and killed Americans worldwide, culminating in the deadliest attack on civilians in world history.
Again, that's not to say war was the best option on the table, nor no blood on the hands of the US in the end... but not a single one of these justifications for war applies to Russia invading Ukraine.
As another commenter said, the morality of military force is a spectrum of grays, not black and white – but just because criticism can be found in every case doesn't mean every one is equally unjustified or amoral.
Is this true? My understanding was that (despite the current conflict), the world has been experiencing a rather unique period of relative peace under US hegemony compared to the past. This is obviously true when looking at timescales since the late 19th/early 20th centuries [https://oneearthfuture.org/opinion-insights/world-getting-mo...]. Clearly the world has been significantly less violent since WW2, which is the time that the US became a superpower.
Datapoints on prior eras are significantly less robust, but the US wasn't a leader at those points anyway. We do know that wars were widespread and brutal, despite having much less advanced weaponry, and we know that life expectancies are far longer today than in the past.
> Again, this doesn’t EXCUSE the actions of the Russian government, but taking their people hostage to use as leverage is disgusting and despicable.
This is how economic sanctions work. What's the alternative? Do nothing? Economic sanctions place pressure on the politicians in the aggressive nation to stop their aggression. The alternatives are to do nothing (morally unfathomable) or to fight them (in which case Russians will die, and if Putin's threats are believed, maybe we all die).
I find it concerning and perplexing that so many hackers are seemingly more concerned about Russia's economy than Ukrainian lives. Every day the conflict goes on, Ukrainians die (and if you're so concerned about economy - their economy is getting destroyed too!). Logically, anything that moves us towards ending the conflict peacefully and quickly reduces lives lost and will spare all involved from further economic retribution.
Additionally, this is personal for Namecheap. Imagine being bombed by a country and having strangers tell you that you have to keep providing services to members the country that is killing your friends, family, or even you! You must continue serving the country that is bombing your home! It is truly absurd.
Many left Russia years ago but they are still being persecuted because of where they were born.
Segregation is not the answer.
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.
And how do you propose they do this? What are you suggesting?
On a more serious note - this is about the opposition being denied foreign infrastructure. This translates into less effective protests, drives people into censored and controlled social media ponds, and makes disseminating thing like videos of war crimes this much harder.
I would understand if Namecheap were to block accounts related to Russian businesses. But this is virtue signalling at its worst - this decision makes situation worse, while making the people who made feel better.
That your grandparents have no agency is not the fault of Ukrainians. I totally understand their mindset, having lived in Poland when the iron curtain was still in place. It sucks to be in your - and their - place, but it sucks even more to be sitting in Kyiv right now waiting for the bombs to fall.
> On a more serious note - this is about the opposition being denied foreign infrastructure. This translates into less effective protests, drives people into censored and controlled social media ponds, and makes disseminating thing like videos of war crimes this much harder.
Agreed, which is exactly why I argued upthread, long ago for Namecheap to block businesses but to leave private individuals' accounts in tact as long as possible.
Keep in mind though: any service in the West you currently rely on will likely go at some point in the near future, and some may not give you any warning at all.
> But this is virtue signalling at its worst
No, it is not virtue signalling, they are pretty much based in Ukraine.
Yes, as a matter of fact I do.
And can the bro talk.
It's almost certainly the case that they face mass resignations and walkouts if they don't cut off Russia. I think I would trust the Ukrainian employees of Namecheap to know better than a random individual on the internet what is in the best interest of those employees and their community.
The "technologically sophisticated people running services inside Russia" that are "living in privileged situations" are the ones with the means to provide ordinary people with alternative news sources and ways of communication - the exact things required for the popular anti-war sentiment to grow. This stupid measure is not making this impossible, but it is making it harder.
It would seem to me that you and Namecheap are suggesting that ordinary Russian people are at fault here because they are not revolting against their government, or worse, just because they are Russian. I am not sure if that is the appropriate message to send right now.
My comment is intended to suggest that people coming on the internet complaining about protests against Russia's war bear some small degree of responsibility.
My comment is intended to suggest that whatever effort they are putting into those complaints, would be better be used if it was spent against the Russian government.
My comment is intended to suggest that people living inside Russia do bear some extra degree of responsibility for this, though it is by no means anywhere near equivalent to them doing it themselves. When people do things in your name, using soldiers supported by your work (taxes if nothing else), some small degree of responsibility comes with it - even in dictatorships.
My comment is intended to suggest that the degree of responsibility is somewhat higher for the relatively elite class that most people acquiring a domain name belong to.
My comment is not intended to suggest that being ethnically Russian, or being born in Russia and having left the country, comes with any degree of responsibility (past that of what everyone has). I can see how you could interpret it that way, but I don't think that's a reasonable or charitable interpretation.
My comment absolutely does not say that they are morally required to revolt despite the high personal cost, nor do I think that it could properly be interpreted to say that. Rather it takes the extremely limited perspective that it is morally wrong for them to spend time and effort complaining about actions intended to stop this travesty. And my comment observes that one way to reach that conclusion is to notice that the effort would be better spent working against the people causing this travesty, instead of the people trying to stop it.
monday_ is setting up infrastructure to help other people do those. I can see how a domain could be helpful for that.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
That's 100% the Kremlin's doing. USA and Europe are effectively already at war with Russia and it will only escalate up from there.
Seems like a bit of a stretch to claim such with so much of their workforce having their life and liveyhoods directly impacted by the Russian invasion.
If a cupcake shop in California stopped serving Russian customers I'd agree with you, but this situation feels just a tiny bit different wouldn't you say.
I am a business owner that sells services worldwide. We've just checked and found that a non-trivial number of our customers are registered in Russia. I don't feel comfortable with our company receiving their money.
I am appalled and horrified by the invasion and I wish to make this right some how. I just don't know what to do here as the leader. I've had relationships with some of these clients for years, and I know them to be good people. (Others, not so much - they will be easy to lose.)
The other thing is - and I'm ashamed to say this - I have a lot of fear about being drawn into the spotlight by publicly removing customers in the way that you have. We are a well-known data provider in our industry with clients all over the world, and I personally rely on this business for my livelihood. As I said, I feel ashamed and guilty about this, but I just don't feel brave enough to take a stand like you have. That said, I do want to set this right.
So I wonder what can be done?
- We can close the website to new visitors from Russia, and prevent new paying registrations, as an immediate first step.
- We can make a donation to the defence and rebuilding of Ukraine, covering the entire amount of revenue we received from Russian companies in the past year.
- We can contact paying clients located in Russia, informing them that their service is being terminated at our discretion, as we are no longer able to serve clients in Russia. We'll have to check our T&Cs for termination as there may be a 30 day cooldown, but we can certainly immediately stop their payments.
I know this isn't even a half-measure and I feel terrible about that. I'm just too afraid of having a target upon me or my company right now. I will just do what I can because it feels right.
That way any Russians doing business with you that do support Putin will pull their money (or you take their money and give it to their enemies, preventing them from using those resources elsewhere), while Russians who do not support Putin will keep using your service. By making the announcement low-key enough/missable, you give Russians opposed to Putin a plausible out. "Oh, sorry, the sanctions/West took out my net for a while and I didn't see that they were dirty traitors, my bad." It might at least buy someone one extra chance/time to communicate.
If 80% of international companies throw out their Russian customers, then the Kremlin has to look fewer places to find where their domestic opposition is hiding things or talking. If I want to know what kind of credit card someone has, there are only a few options. If I want to know where someone bought a certain candy bar? That's a lot harder.
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> If more grace time is necessary for some to move, we will provide it.
Why not 14 or 30 days? I've moved domains before (many years ago) and I think it took > 10 days depending on lots of factors, complications, and even had to cut support tickets, etc.. So I'd hate to see an innocent Russian freelancer get punished by this, if they missed your notification and had to move in a hurry.
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 correct, but your actions are going to silence (or at least muffle or interrupt) these people's voices. Don't double down on it because you're riding some righteousness high. You still have time to backpedal and not act like a vain fool.
The tax dollars you are talking about are pennies to the oligarchs. You are only hitting regular people with this selfishness. It's a pathetic gesture, and I'll never use your services.
I 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.
I have few domains with you and will be moving. If you don't understand what services your company provides and who are your clients ie. that these can be varied people and businesses and how these sweeping measures can affect them, then I don't want tomorrow to end up without domain because I had idea for domain that ended with ru, or ly (Libya) or some other smaller country domain that ended up on media shit list.
Those in Russia and in that region might be a problem with blocked credit cards and such.
I transferred my three domains to Cloudflare. Cheers.
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.
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.
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.
Could you please consider a Saudi Arabia Service Termination?
1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saudi_Arabian%E2%80%93led_inte...
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.
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 ?
What about the American regime currently bombing Somalia?
Or the Saudi regime currently bombing Yemen?
Or the Israeli regime currently bombing Syria?
Or the ... regime currently bombing ...? You get the point, surely.
Why the selective enforcement against just this one particular regime?
Why today? Perhaps the answer lies in the field of sociology or psychology.
As pointed out by others before me, this mainly pushes affected customers to transfer domains to Russia-based providers, increasing their profits (a little) and sphere of control (a little more).
...But it makes them feel better?
It's irrelevant what previously occurred by other governments.
All of the bombardments I mentioned happened on the same exact days as the bombardments in Ukraine. And how you can dismiss the killing of people in other countries as 'irrelevant' is astonishing.
> Why the selective enforcement against just this one particular regime?
Providing the plausible reason why there was selective enforcement for that one particular regime, and thus the irrelevancy of what previously occurred by other governments.
Your next, perhaps still valid question, is why they aren't continuing to apply this policy to your other cited circumstances.
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.
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.
>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?
[1]:https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2022/02/28/world-war-...
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.
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.
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.
Yes, Russians will suffer.
Yes some of them tried to change things and paid dearly for that. I'm sorry for them.
But up until a week ago vast majority didn't care. Majority of Russians supported (and still support) annexation of Crimea. Well guess what, it's time to pay.
Nope. Don't trust russian propaganda. Even many of originally brainwashed "vatniks" have not been buying this shit for some years.
> But up until a week ago vast majority didn't care
Those who "care" tend to find "novichok" on their underwear. Terrible choice, no excuses, no nothing but fear of being repressed for a tweet. Me and my family will now pay for this fear with even more fear: of being impoverished, being outcasts, being locked behind the new iron curtain etc on top of even more repression.
I'm not looking for sympathy, nor want to ask for forgiveness for the orders I didn't give. Be safe my friends, even if you consider me an enemy
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.
That is despicable, assuming you are an American citizen.
Also how do you know you aren’t terminating some pro freedom sites, anyway? You disgust me.
https://www.theverge.com/2020/3/25/21194417/namecheap-corona...
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?
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.
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-...
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’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!
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'...
Yes there were; it was outside the Russian embassy.
Having said that; I totally agree with your post and its one of the best I've read on this subject. It makes no sense to further isolate Russians. Any consumer of gas or electricity in most of Europe is part of this; as we are all financially supporting Putin, and even with these sanctions will continue to do so.
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!
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?
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.
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.
Just wondering...
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.
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.
Are you planning to ban USA for all of the wars that it is engaged in or is this a racist and hypocritical move?
So you are asking me to leave but not letting me go.
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.
Will be moving over my stuff, and adding it to the blacklist
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).
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.
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.
May your ill-considered policy be rewarded with bankruptcy.
Please help to stop the war, not to fuel it!
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 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!
I won't be doing business with Namecheap in the future
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.
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.
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.
Btw, do you ban US, Saudi Arabia, UK etc too for their war crimes?
I am not my government, and apart from starting a one-man revolution with a pretty obvious result, I'm doing everything I can to raise awareness, condemn actions of Russian government, and put an end to this. I've been doing so since 2011, back when I was a college student.
Namecheap -- this is a low move. While I do understand that your company has a lot of Ukrainian employees, all of which are in grave danger, you're not doing anyone a favor by making a shitty life of most Russian nationals even shittier.
That raises a question: how to find a domain registar without a lot of Ukrainian employees ?
According to the recent leak, Epik has them a lot as well.
Could we crowdsource such a list of registrars sorted by nationality of their employees to be prepared to the geo risks?
Other people are trying to move to Cloudflare -- but my banking cards are already not working, and I can't pay in USD for their services. Plus to that, even if somebody manages to move to Cloudflare or GoDaddy, there's no guarantee that they won't pull the plug as well.
People here are suggesting nic.ru, which I presume would have a pretty low risk of getting kicked off.
You might consider a list of registrars that do stuff you disagree with instead.
I would prefer to work with companies where different nationalities are represented.
90%+ of employees in one country (be it Ukraine, Russia, USA or China) is a geo-risk for clients.
And mind you, Namecheap doesn't ban clients based on their agreement or disagreement with something. It bans pro-Ukrainian dissidents in Russia too.
Racism culture thrives in mono-ethnic companies and this Namecheap case is a good example