Quad9 says it will leave France on November 24 after court orders DNS blocks for beIN

Quad9 says French courts ruled in favor of beIN and ordered it to block recursive DNS resolution for domains beIN alleges are tied to copyright infringement, with penalties reduced from €580,000 to €1,000 per day. The nonprofit DNS resolver says it will withdraw its free service from France on November 24 rather than use global blocking or unreliable geoIP blocking, which it argues conflicts with its privacy and neutral-resolution mission.

Technology teams using Quad9 in France should plan an alternate resolver before November 24. Quad9’s reported constraint is specific: it says it does not maintain jurisdiction-linked user records, while its past geoIP workaround in Germany still led to fines, so the trade-off is service continuity versus adding location and blocking controls that may undermine privacy goals. A limitation is that the article gives Quad9’s account, not the court’s reasoning or the full list of affected domains.