Quad9 will cut off users in France on November 24 after losing a piracy case to beIN
Quad9, the Swiss non-profit that runs the public DNS resolver 9.9.9.9, will stop serving users in France on November 24. The foundation announced the move on October 22, a day after the Paris Judicial Court ruled against it in a case brought by beIN Sports. The court ordered Quad9 to block pirate sites streaming WTA tennis for users in France and set a penalty of 1,000 euros for each day it fails to do so.
"This decision in favor of beIN forces Quad9 to block the recursive DNS resolution for a number of domain names for users located in France," the foundation wrote. "However, for Quad9, this has never been just a financial issue: it is a matter of principle."
The fine is small, the precedent is not
beIN had asked for far more. As we reported on October 5, the broadcaster wanted 10,000 euros a day for each of 58 domains Quad9 had not blocked, up to 580,000 euros a day. The court cut that to 1,000 euros a day. The underlying order runs until the end of the WTA season on November 14, so Quad9 puts its exposure in this case at about 24,000 euros plus legal costs.
The money is not what worries the foundation. According to Quad9, about 20 other lawsuits are pending against it and other resolver operators in France, demanding blocks on hundreds of domain names. "Quad9 cannot survive the accumulation of penalties yet to be assessed in 20 other pending cases," it said.
Other intermediaries have fared better in the same court. On October 7, the court refused beIN's request for 10,000 euros a day against Cloudflare, Surfshark and NordVPN, TorrentFreak reported. Cloudflare had blocked three of four sites through its CDN, and the two VPN providers had blocked six of eleven through their DNS servers in France. The judges held that intermediaries must make a reasonable effort but do not have to guarantee results. Cloudflare also escaped penalties from Canal+ in September while keeping its 1.1.1.1 resolver out of the blocking. Quad9, by contrast, has not blocked any of the domains.
Why Quad9 chose to leave instead of blocking
Quad9 says it has no reliable way to tell who is in France. It does not keep user records or require sign-up. When it tried to limit a block to German users by IP location in a Sony Music case in 2021, the plaintiff used a VPN to reach the blocked content from Germany, and Quad9 was fined for contempt of court. It eventually won that case on appeal, at a cost of "six figures" and several years.
The other option, adding the domains to the malware blocklist that applies to all 9.9.9.9 users worldwide, would satisfy the court. Quad9 rejected it because it would apply a French ruling to every user in the world "for the commercial benefit of a single private, foreign-owned company". The foundation also argues that blocking at the resolver does not take a stream offline, since users can switch to any of thousands of other open resolvers.
An appeal is pending. Cisco took the same route in 2024, when its OpenDNS resolver withdrew from France after a Canal+ blocking order.
What changes for users in France
Quad9 published a partial list of French networks that send it queries. It includes the state digital directorate DINUM, the RENATER research network, EDF, SNCF, France Télévisions, regional councils and hospital groups. From November 24, devices and routers in France set to Quad9's addresses (9.9.9.9, 149.112.112.112, 2620:fe::fe and the other Quad9 endpoints) will stop getting answers, and websites will fail to load until the DNS setting is changed. Quad9 says it hopes 30 days is enough time to switch. Network administrators who rely on its malware filtering will need another filtering resolver. Any resolver serving France may face the same blocking orders.
