NameCheap CEO, Richard Kirkendall, went on record via Twitter earlier today, confirming that his company has informed Russian customers they will no longer be provided services.
The following email was sent to NameCheap customers affected by the termination of services:
Russia service termination
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.
It seems that several customers that were affected are no longer in Russia or not even Russian in nationality. There’s an ongoing discussion on Ycombinator, Twitter, and NamePros.
Namecheap’s attempts to win custom by affiliating themselves with causes and other gimmicks has long felt crass. They must think a thinly veiled plug of their upsells will slip by unnoticed.
I doubt many Russian oligarchs are using their services. It’s unfair to punish regular people who have enough on their plate as it is.
So they’re getting a weeks notice to transfer right at the time their government & media are taking them into a war that’ll cause their entire economy to implode and them to become isolated from a world they’d felt as much a part of as any of us. It’ll cost at least 25% more now to even do their transfers and getting worse. That’s if they even notice as they stand in line to withdraw something other than ruples.
Namecheap should have stuck to attempting to compete consistantly in ways that match their branding instead of relying on mindtricks, causes and gimmicks.
oh look, even the b is sinking.