My registrar only requires that I have an EU mailing address, so for the handful of EU domains I maintain I have an astonishingly cheap PO box in Spain (I live in the US). Presumably, there's a trash can somewhere outside Barcelona that has a bunch of snailmail domain spam addressed to me.

Your registrar only verifies that you have an EU mailing address. You can absolutely lose your domains if they for some reason audit you and decide you are in breach if their terms

This is extremely unlikely - I wouldn't lose sleep over this. This will only happen when you're doing something controversial/illegal and your registrar is actively trying to legally get rid of you.

>This is extremely unlikely - I wouldn't lose sleep over this. This will only happen when you're doing something controversial/illegal and your registrar is actively trying to legally get rid of you.

But per the subject of the article I think it's worth taking very seriously from multiple angles. Domains are something a lot of people care about for a very long time, their entire lives, or the case of a business its whole existence as an entity. My oldest core domains hit their 25th anniversary this year. A lot can happen over the course of decades, including vast changes in what counts as "controversial/illegal". The winds of politics can and have shifted, repeatedly, a great deal, and technological advance has for better and very much for worse reduced a lot of gray area and informal aspects of law/culture that people depended on (though boosting others).

If one is counting on "audits are very expensive and thus receive significant political push back" it's worth reflecting on whether another 25 years of AI and a host of developments might change that. Could the subject of EU domain ownership at any point become a hot topic? Are there possible financial/social incentives that might push someone to make it a hot topic (absolutely!)? Etc etc, but I think part of the point of the article and certainly something I've come to consider more myself is it's worth taking a longer view more often when considering foundational stuff.

Some EU countries also have the same policy for their ccTLDs, although I believe the EU rules are that they aren't allowed to restrict to just their own country's citizens/residents like others worldwide do, they can only restrict non-EU registration.

Caused me some grief post-Brexit when my firstname.tld domain happened to be some French islands and AFNIC started indicating they'd enforce it. Fortunately I have the .uk now.

It wouldn't make any sense to require a specific EU country. The EU's Freedom of Movement rules mean that on the whole all of any EU member state's citizens are welcome to go wherever they please within the EU, so you can't require "citizenship" or "residence" of a specific country.

The way this comes about is interesting. First up the EC (the predecessor entity to the EU) is a trade bloc, so it wants to ensure you can move say money and goods around, not much use being a trading bloc if it's there's a lot of taxes and paperwork to move your partly finished Doodads from Germany to France, then when they're finished ship them to Italy for sale. But wait, if we can only move money and goods we create a race to the bottom, the workers would be trapped, so move production to wherever the most desperate workers are and pay them as little as possible. That doesn't sound like we've made anything better. So they say workers can move too, if you want to live somewhere with better pay, or a nicer climate, that's cool. And then the EU's court says well, what exactly is a worker? Is Bob a worker if he just moved to your country hoping to find a job? Does he get to bring his elderly grandmother? She's not going to get a job, how is she a worker? So they decide no, not just workers, all people. All EU people are welcome to move anywhere inside the EU.

> All EU people are welcome to move anywhere inside the EU.

this is not true, it is still "freedom of movement (for workers)"

the granny example is explicitly not permitted unless they have sufficient funds to support themselves without the target states' assistance (meaning independently wealthy)

you can be deported otherwise

> the granny example is explicitly not permitted

This is totally wrong.

The granny can get her pension anywhere in the EU, no "independent wealth" required.

There are some restrictions if you have no means to support yourself and require benefits, but the restrictions are definitely not as broad as "granny needs much money on her bank account"

Read: https://commission.europa.eu/strategy-and-policy/policies/ju... and links contained therein

not all grannies are of pensionable age

your linked page alludes to this, without details

> In order to stay in another EU country for more than three months, EU citizens have to meet certain conditions depending on their status (for example worker, self-employed, student, etc.) and may be asked to comply with administrative formalities.

if you follow the wizard on your page you get this:

https://europa.eu/youreurope/citizens/residence/residence-ri...

If you move somewhere to work at age 62 and then retire at 65, can you stay there? Do you have to become a citizen first?

(Just curious; I know this is a tangent!)

Presumably you would have built up a pension in your previous country, which you can draw from. That would satisfy the requirement for an independent source of income. When Britain was in the EU it was (and still is) common for pensioners to live in Spain.

The comment you're responding to is wrong. Yes of course you can stay there, you can even move there post-retirement. You just can't get the very lowest level of benefits unless you've lived there for long enough.

You gain the right to permanent residence after 5 years of residence under the other conditions.

The 65 year old would need to live from their pension for a couple more years.