Quad9 DNS resolver to exit France
Archived — this story has rotated out of today’s deck. It is kept here in full.
The gist
Swiss nonprofit Quad9 will stop serving France from November 24 after a Paris court ordered piracy-linked domain blocking.
The exit shows court-ordered DNS blocking can push privacy-focused resolvers out of a country.
Background
Quad9 is a Swiss public-benefit, nonprofit foundation that runs a free DNS resolver (a service that translates website names into addresses) at 9.9.9.9, focused on privacy and security. beIN Sports, a Qatari company with offices in France, went to the Paris Judicial Court to force Quad9 to block domain names it says are used to infringe its audiovisual rights on sports broadcasts. Quad9 says it cannot block only for French users because its free service requires no sign-up, and it refuses to apply a French court order to users worldwide. It also faces roughly 20 other pending French cases and says it had no other viable option left.
How it unfolded
- Oct 21, 2026The Paris Judicial Court ruled against Quad9 in favor of beIN, ordering it to implement the May blocking order, now expanded to 58 domain names, or face a €1,000 per day penalty.
- Oct 22, 2026Quad9 announced it will stop serving users in France starting November 24.
- Nov 14, 2026The blocking measures end; Quad9 calculates the €1,000/day penalty adds up to €24,000, not counting its own legal costs.
- Nov 24, 2026Quad9 will no longer offer its free cyberprotection service to users located in France.
Who’s saying what
- Official
- Quad9 says it categorically refuses to alter or misrepresent DNS responses against users' expectations, calls recursive DNS a neutral and passive service, and argues blocking via DNS is ineffective and disproportionate since the source content remains available under another name.
- Party
- beIN sought the blocking order against domain names it asserts are participating in copyright infringement of its audiovisual rights on sports event broadcasts, and asked for €10,000 per day for every domain that remained accessible through Quad9.
- Caution
- The Paris Court said Quad9 had to make reasonable efforts to block the domain names but decided to take no action at all.
Still unverified
How Quad9 will stop serving French users has not been decided; the foundation said it is still evaluating its options, which it believes are all imperfect.