Quad9 to Exit France: DNS Resolver Withdraws After beIN Court Ruling

Quad9, the Swiss nonprofit that operates the free 9.9.9.9 public DNS resolver, will stop serving users in France on November 24, 2026, after a French court ordered it to block domain names for French users in a copyright case brought by the Qatari broadcaster beIN. Quad9 says it cannot comply without either extending French law worldwide or building a system that identifies users by jurisdiction, and it refuses to do either. The decision removes a free cybersecurity-protection resolver from French networks that include government agencies, research institutes, hospitals, utilities and railways.

What Quad9 announced

Quad9 published a blog post titled "Farewell, France" dated October 22, 2026, stating that as of Tuesday, November 24, 2026 it will no longer serve users located in France. The organization says it will not block the disputed domains, and instead will withdraw from the French market entirely.

Quad9 will not block the domains in question - we wish to remain committed to our integrity of providing a complete view of the DNS for users who wish that service.

The affected user population is not only consumer broadband subscribers. Quad9 published a partial list of French autonomous systems (ASNs) observed using its service, drawn from roughly an hour of typical traffic, and explicitly said it picked those networks at random from hundreds that use Quad9. The list includes national government directorates, public research bodies, the national research and education network RENATER, regional and municipal governments, public fibre-network operators, energy utilities, a national railway holding, university hospitals, public broadcasters, and defence and cybersecurity vendors.

The court ruling against Quad9

A French court ruled in favor of beIN and ordered Quad9 to block recursive DNS resolution for a set of domain names for users located in France. beIN is described in Quad9's post as a Qatari company with offices in France that asserted the domain names were participating in copyright infringement of its audiovisual rights on sports event broadcasts.

Quad9 states it has no association with the domains or their operators. The court reduced the financial penalty from 580,000 euros to 1,000 euros per day. Quad9 estimates the accumulated penalty at roughly 24,000 euros for the remaining period through November 14, excluding legal defense costs.

Quad9's stated position is that the money was never the central issue. The organization describes recursive DNS resolution as a neutral and passive service and says it refuses to alter DNS responses in ways that contradict users' expectations.

Why Quad9 says it cannot comply

Quad9's compliance argument rests on a technical claim: it has no way to determine which of its users are in France. The service is free, requires no sign-up, and keeps no record associating users with jurisdictions.

We have no database of users associating them with jurisdictions... we have no list of French users, because we do not keep dossiers of our users at all.

The organization frames this as a design principle rather than an oversight. It argues that requiring users to identify themselves before connecting to the internet would be a worse outcome than the blocking order itself, and that privacy of user data and honesty of DNS responses are directly opposed to the methods needed to implement geo-targeted blocking.

The two options Quad9 rejected

Quad9 evaluated two possible compliance paths and rejected both.

Global blocking would export French law worldwide

Quad9 maintains a single global blocklist of malicious domains used to protect users of its protective resolvers (9.9.9.9 and secondaries). Domains on that list are not blocked on its non-protective resolvers (9.9.9.10 and secondaries). Adding the beIN domains to the global list would satisfy the court order.

Quad9 rejected this because it would apply a French legal decision to every internet user worldwide for the commercial benefit of a single private, foreign-owned company. The post argues the precedent would let any nation impose its laws, morals, economic demands, or social constructs on any other nation by blocking DNS names.

GeoIP blocking already failed in Germany

Quad9 says it tried geoIP-based blocking as a stopgap during a similar German case in 2021-2023 involving Sony Music Entertainment GmbH. According to the post, the plaintiff used a VPN to access the blocked content from Germany, the court agreed with Sony that this constituted noncompliance, and Quad9 was fined for contempt of court.

Quad9 eventually won that German case in Dresden, but says it took several years and six figures in costs. The organization presents this history as proof that geoIP blocking is both technically imprecise and legally risky in the exact courts it must satisfy.

The 20 other pending cases

The beIN case is one of approximately 20 pending lawsuits in France against Quad9 and other recursive resolver operators demanding blocking of hundreds of different domain names. Quad9 says it expects many of these to escalate to the same conditions as the beIN case, meaning the legal risk persists regardless of the outcome of any single ruling.

This is the core of Quad9's stated rationale: a daily penalty of 1,000 euros is survivable in one case, but an accumulation of penalties across many cases is not, and the organization says inaction is not an option for challenging the decision.

Who loses DNS service in France on November 24

Quad9 published a partial, randomly selected list of French networks observed using its service. The categories and examples below are drawn directly from that list.

Category	Examples cited by Quad9
National government and public agencies	DINUM (Prime Minister's digital directorate), Business France, France Travail, CEA Paris-Saclay, IRD, Institut Pasteur
Research and education	RENATER, the national research and education network
Student-run campus networks	Crans (ENS Paris-Saclay), ViaRézo (CentraleSupélec), ESIEESPACE
Regional and local government	Région Nouvelle-Aquitaine, Département de la Seine-Saint-Denis, Ville et Eurométropole de Strasbourg, Grand Besançon Métropole
Public digital infrastructure	Manche Numérique, Somme Numérique, Essonne Numérique, Gigalis, Orne THD, SITEC
Energy and utilities	Électricité de France (EDF), Compagnie nationale du Rhône, Teréga, UEM, Vialis
Transport	SNCF, Sanef
Health	AP-HM, SESAN, Compagnie Générale de Santé (Ramsay Santé)
Broadcast and media	France Télévisions, TDF
Private industry and technology	Thales Services Numériques, Stormshield, IDEMIA Identity & Security France, Dassault Systèmes, VINCI Construction SI, Flowbird

Quad9 notes that autonomous system numbers are not exclusively geographically mapped and cannot be used as a jurisdictional identifier, though it says most of these networks have a significant portion of their user base in France.

Why Quad9 argues DNS blocking is ineffective

Quad9's central claim is that forcing a recursive resolver to block domain names does not remove content from circulation and has no effect on the servers hosting it. The post says users seeking blocked content will simply switch to another public DNS service, potentially one in a less privacy-protective jurisdiction.

Quad9 compares the measure to holding a piece of newspaper in front of a stadium full of people to block the view of a concert, and says the effect of such rulings is measurable only in lawyer fees and press releases.

The organization also states it does not condone content piracy and argues piracy should be addressed at the source, where infringing content is published, rather than through uninvolved third parties.

Industry context: Cisco's OpenDNS pulled out of France first

Quad9's exit follows a similar move by Cisco, which withdrew its OpenDNS service from the French market. Commenter @euio757 summarized the pattern:

Canal+ has been busy getting web-blocking injunctions in France against sports piracy sites which stream sporting events for which it has the exclusive broadcast rights within the French market. It previously targeted DNS resolvers operated by Google, Cloudflare and Cisco... Google and Cloudflare, therefore, have been forced to instigate them. However, Cisco just pulled its OpenDNS service out of the French market entirely.

The comparison matters because it shows a pattern of behavior for large operators (comply) versus smaller or more principled operators (leave). Commenter @artooro argued that Quad9's size is precisely why it is targeted: "Quad9 is getting picked on because they do not have a large financial backing. Not because it makes any logical sense. France is shooting themselves in the foot."

The commentary: courts, concentration risk, and the limits of exit

Hacker News commenters converged on several distinct arguments. A recurring theme was that the courts applied a remedy without understanding the technology.

On the German ruling that Quad9 cites as precedent, @nadermx wrote:

Imagine doing everything possible to stop something. They then circumvent your protections with yet another service, and you get fined.

@whh made the same point more bluntly:

The neighbour's dog bit me, so they put up a fence. I climbed over it and got bitten again. The fence doesn't count.

@babarock questioned the premise of suing a resolver at all: "Would you punish the phone book company for having the number of a criminal listed?"

Concentration risk in the resolver market

Commenter @DemiGuru raised a structural concern that predates this ruling. The argument is that consolidating users onto a handful of resolvers makes each remaining blocking order more valuable:

I mentioned not too long ago that Mullvad was handing its resolver users over to Quad9... A blocking order is only as damaging as the resolver it impacts. Every time an operator shuts down and redirects its users to Quad9, it pools more users into one place. This makes the next blocking order even more valuable and effective for whoever files it. And now we're seeing Quad9 backing out of a market.

The unresolved technical question

Several commenters noticed an apparent contradiction: Quad9 says geoIP blocking is unworkable, yet its remedy is to stop serving French users, which also requires identifying them.

@0x0000000 asked: "They mentioned geoIP is insufficient for complying with the block, so if they dont have a way to block only these domains for users in France, how will they block all requests for users in France?" @Felger and @egorfine raised similar questions, with @egorfine asking why Quad9 needs to block French IPs at all rather than simply withdrawing its legal presence in France.

Decentralization as an alternative

@Bender proposed that many small, self-hosted DoH, DoT and DoQ resolvers could change the economics of these orders, asking whether France "could realistically expect individual operators of small DoH/DoT/DoQ open servers to block domains at their behest."

Exit may not end the legal exposure

@modeless predicted the withdrawal will not resolve Quad9's legal problems: "the French lawyers will use the same tactic as the German ones, using a VPN to access the services from France to justify continuing their lawsuits. Perhaps they should consider relocating out of Europe."

Blame directed at the plaintiff

The most personal criticism targeted beIN Sports chairman Nasser Al-Khelaifi, whom @miohtama identified as also president of Paris Saint-Germain and chairman of Qatar Sports Investment, and noted is not French.

@JokerDan suggested a symmetrical response: "DNS resolvers getting sued should stop resolving domains/properties of the companies suing them too."

European hosting and jurisdictional questions

Some commenters drew broader conclusions about European jurisdiction. @this_user wrote that the case is "the most recent example for why" organizations should not host in the EU, while @Helmut10001 said the real problem - courts misunderstanding DNS - "can easily be replaced France with Germany or US here." @9cb14c1ec0 wondered whether "the days of a global internet are drawing to a close."

A counterpoint came from @rafram, who noted the internal tension in Quad9's position: because Quad9 already blocks malicious sites like malware and phishing, plaintiffs can reasonably ask why piracy cannot be added to the same list.

What Quad9 says happens next

Quad9 states it will not block the disputed domains, that an appeal is pending, and that it will continue to litigate this case and others. The organization says it will keep opposing court-ordered DNS blocking of this nature and is soliciting donations to fund legal costs.

Quad9's post asks French citizens to contact legislators and the national regulatory authority ARCOM, arguing that ARCOM's mandate requires balancing citizens' digital rights against the audiovisual rights of sports rights holders, and that balance cannot be claimed when user privacy and security are the collateral damage. Quad9 also flags its concern about proposals in France and other European nations to give private corporations automated, unvalidated DNS filtering capabilities.

Key facts at a glance

• Operator: Quad9, a Swiss public-benefit nonprofit foundation, free public DNS at 9.9.9.9 (protective) and 9.9.9.10 (non-protective).
• Action: Withdrawal of service to users in France effective November 24, 2026.
• Cause: A French court ruling in favor of beIN requiring Quad9 to block DNS resolution for specified domain names for French users.
• Penalty: Reduced from 580,000 euros to 1,000 euros per day; Quad9 estimates about 24,000 euros through November 14, 2026, excluding defense costs.
• Scale: Approximately 20 other lawsuits pending in France against Quad9 and other resolver operators, covering hundreds of domain names.
• Precedent cited: A 2021-2023 German case involving Sony Music Entertainment GmbH, in which Quad9 attempted geoIP blocking, the plaintiff used a VPN, and Quad9 was fined for contempt before eventually winning in Dresden.
• Announced date: October 22, 2026.