The doMEn registry has restored the operation of the t.me domain just one day after its blocking. This action came after the registry confirmed that it had set the serverHold status due to sanctions imposed by the U.S. Department of the Treasury (OFAC).
On July 13, the agency added the VPN service First VPN to its sanctions list. According to the FBI, this service was utilized by at least 25 hacker groups, and the complete link t.meFirstVPNSеrvicе was included in the service's listing.
It is noted that the registry cannot block a single address selectively; such a block can only be executed on Telegram's side. Therefore, the zone operator likely complied with the sanctions requirements in a radical manner by removing the entire domain from DNS. Industry publications have reported that Telegram did not receive prior notifications, and Pavel Durov publicly requested the registry to clarify the situation.
During the outage, the messenger redirected short links to an alternative domain, telegram.me.