Dassault Systèmes, EDF, France Travail, the Pasteur Institute, SNCF… so many organizations rely on Quad9.
The eponymous foundation notes this as it prepares to leave France. On home soil, starting November 24, 2026, its recursive DNS resolver will no longer respond.
Set against this backdrop is a judgment with an injunction issued on October 21. The Paris Judicial Court confirmed what it had ordered in May: Quad9 must “take all measures proper to impede” access to several sites that illegally stream WTA Tour matches (women’s tennis). The plaintiff—beIN Sports France—had also targeted, for their respective DNS services, Google and the Czech company Whalebone (DNS4EU for the latter).
Quad9 does not want global blocking or geolocation-based blocking
Quad9 has appealed the judgment. But the financial penalty (€1,000 per day of non-compliance), coupled with the risk of a domino effect (20 other cases in progress), convinced it to stop providing its services in France.
Quad9 also refuses to implement global blocking. “The rest of the world does not want to be subjected to French law,” summarizes the Swiss-based foundation. It also rejects the notion of geolocation-based blocking. The reason: it is technically inappropriate, and a court has already dismissed the measure in the past. In Germany, in the context of Sony Music’s proceedings, the company had used a VPN to demonstrate the GeoIP filter’s ineffectiveness. Afterward, the court condemned Quad9 for non-compliance with the order that had been issued against it.
The foundation more broadly argues that any blocking would contradict its “public interest mandate” and its goals of user data privacy and the integrity of DNS responses. It also fears opening the door to a flood of requests, motivated not only by commercial concerns but potentially by moral, religious, or political grounds.
A different fate for Cloudflare…
Among other matters, Quad9 has tangled with Canal+. On July 17, the Paris Judicial Court ordered Quad9—along with Whalebone—to prevent “by any effective means” access to sites broadcasting football matches (the Champions League and the Premier League).
Canal+ also sued Cloudflare… and the case took a different turn. In April, the same court ordered the American company to block 21 domains broadcasting F1 and 16 broadcasting MotoGP. Again, “by any effective means.”
Cloudflare had set up a block at the CDN level, but not at its DNS (1.1.1.1). Not satisfied, Canal+ returned to court seeking a daily injunction. It argued that the measures taken had made only a handful of sites inaccessible… two of which had even bypassed the block (one by switching CDN, the other by using a mirror).
… who preferred to block at the CDN level
Cloudflare argued that acting at the CDN level was “incomparably more effective” than at the DNS level. It added that the court had left it free to choose the services to use as long as it “contributed useful to the fight against sports piracy.”
Two rulings in mid-September, for F1 and MotoGP respectively, favored Cloudflare. The company had taken the reasonably expected measures, according to the court, which relied on a 2014 CJEU ruling to remind that intermediaries bear a duty of means rather than a duty of result. As for the site that changed its CDN, it is Canal+’s responsibility to engage the new technical intermediary. And for mirror sites, to report them to ARCOM.
Like Quad9, Cloudflare argues that DNS resolvers are not the ideal lever to block access to domains, primarily due to the risk of extraterritorial effects.
In the same vein, OpenDNS (Cisco) had left France in June 2024.
