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Now IONOS kicks out Russian customers

Kevin Murphy, March 3, 2022, 13:56:51 (UTC), Domain Registrars

IONOS has become the second major registrar to say it will turf out its Russian customers in response to the invasion of Ukraine.

The company’s board of directors today issued a statement expressing support for the people of Ukraine and saying:

To support worldwide sanctions on Russia, we are not accepting any new customer contracts from Russia and are also terminating existing relationships with Russian customers. This also applies to business relationships with Russian service providers and suppliers. We are currently reviewing all existing supplier contracts.

The directors said that many of their colleagues come from Ukraine and have family in the region.

It’s not immediately clear whether the ban applies to domain name registrants as well as hosting customers, and what options Russian registrants have been given. An IONOS spokesperson said the details are still being worked out.

Earlier in the week, US-based registrar Namecheap, which has its customer support based in Ukraine, gave its Russian registrants notice to transfer their names elsewhere. It later said it would offer free domains to Russian dissidents.

While a little smaller than Namecheap, IONOS is part of Germany-based United-Internet and, with over five million names, a top-10 registrar in terms of gTLD domains under management.

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