Quad9 says it will stop serving users in France after court ruling in beIN case
The Swiss nonprofit DNS provider says it will not block domains named by the sports broadcaster and will leave France on November 24 instead.
Quad9, a free public DNS service, says it will stop offering its service to users in France from November 24, 2026. The decision follows a French court ruling in favor of the broadcaster beIN, according to a statement Quad9 published on its own website, which was shared on Hacker News. This story rests on that single account, written by Quad9.
Quad9 says the ruling requires it to block DNS resolution of a number of domain names for users in France. beIN, which Quad9 describes as a Qatari company with offices in France, says those domains are involved in copyright infringement of its sports broadcast rights. Quad9 says it has no link to the domains or to the people who run the sites.
According to the statement, the court cut the penalty for not complying from €580,000 to €1,000 per day. Quad9 says the fine would run until the blocking ends on November 14, for a total of €24,000, not counting legal costs. The statement does not explain how those two dates fit together.
Quad9 says it cannot comply because it does not know where its users are. It keeps no user database and requires no sign-up. It says blocking the domains for everyone worldwide would satisfy the court, but it rejects that because it would apply French law to every user in the world. It also rules out location-based blocking. In an earlier case in Germany, it says, Sony Music Entertainment GmbH used a VPN to get around that kind of block, and Quad9 was fined for contempt of court. Quad9 says it eventually won that case.
“We categorically refuse to alter or lie to you about the DNS responses you receive in a way that opposes your expectations.”Quad9 statement
The case matters beyond beIN, according to Quad9. It says about 20 other lawsuits are pending in France against it and other resolver operators, together seeking blocks on hundreds of names. It says it could not survive the penalties if those cases end the same way. Quad9 says it has many users in France, including infrastructure, finance, education and national security networks. It says they will lose protection it has provided for nearly 9 years. It also says it does "not condone content piracy" and that blocking at the DNS level does not remove content from the servers that host it.
Several things are not yet clear. The statement does not name the court, the date of the ruling or the domains involved. It does not say whether Quad9 will appeal. beIN's view is not included, and its response is not known. Quad9 also gives no figure for how many users in France will be affected.
