Quad9 does not block pirate sites in France and does not rule out leaving the country

The Swiss non-profit DNS resolver Quad9 refuses to block pirate sites under a ruling by the Paris court. In May, the court, acting on a lawsuit by broadcaster beIN Sports, ordered Quad9, Google and the DNS4EU operator to block French users' access to broadcasts of WTA tennis matches. The list initially held six domains, then 52 more were added, making 58 in total.

Why Quad9 does not block

Quad9 has not blocked any of them and, according to the foundation, never has. The service does not collect user data, so it cannot reliably limit blocking to French users alone: it would have to rely on third-party databases linking IP addresses to location, and those are incomplete and inaccurate. The foundation explains that it has no legally viable way to identify a French user.

beIN Sports asked for penalties from the very start. When filing the lawsuit, the broadcaster demanded €2,000 per day for each unblocked domain, but the court refused: nothing indicated that Quad9 intended to resist the ruling. Now the broadcaster has returned to the Paris court and is demanding €10,000 per domain per day. For 58 domains that comes to as much as €580,000 per day. The hearing has taken place, and a decision is expected in about three weeks.

In its May ruling, the Paris court noted that the defendants had not shown that limiting the blocks to French territory would be expensive or technically impossible.

What choice remains

If penalties are imposed after all, the foundation says it has three paths left: block only French users, which would be inaccurate and would still leave the risk of penalties; block the domains worldwide, extending French jurisdiction across the whole world; or stop serving users in France altogether. That is what OpenDNS did in 2024 after the first blocking order.

Quad9 insists that recursive DNS resolvers are not suited to fighting online piracy. The foundation is obliged to comply with laws while not putting its own existence at risk, and Swiss law requires following the principles of privacy, security and internet stability. In July, the French parliament passed a law allowing new domains to be added automatically during live broadcasts, with regulator ARCOM checking them after the fact. Quad9 considers this dangerous and says the practice will push people towards less secure systems. A decision on the penalties is expected this month.

Image: Packet Clearing House, Inc. CC BY-SA 4.0 · License

Translation editors: Соловьев В., Пеков А.