Quad9 to stop serving France on November 24: what the Paris court ordered, what it costs and what developers should check

What this video covers

• On May 13, 2026 the Paris judicial court ordered Quad9 at beIN Sports France's request to block access from France to listed IPTV streaming services until the last WTA tennis match of the 2026 season, set at November 14. The list began with six domain names and, according to beIN, covers fifty eight after additions notified by the regulator Arcom.
• beIN asked for a penalty of 10,000 euros a day per reachable domain, which across fifty eight domains is 580,000 euros a day. On October 21 the court set 1,000 euros a day in total until the measures end. Quad9 calculates about 24,000 euros before legal fees.
• The court wrote that Quad9, which owes reasonable efforts, said it uses none, and that this alone justified a penalty. Two weeks earlier the same court refused penalties against Cloudflare and VPN providers that had blocked some of the listed sites.
• Quad9 says a resolver receives a name and a network address with no account behind it, that location databases are incomplete, and that a location filter failed it in a 2021-2023 case brought by Sony Music in Germany. It refuses to block worldwide.
• Quad9 lists French networks it sees, including the Prime Minister's digital directorate, Renater, EDF, SNCF, Institut Pasteur and Marseille's public hospitals, and says the list is a partial sample of network numbers that are not strictly geographic.
• Developers should search routers, resolv.conf, Docker daemons, CI runners and forwarders such as Pi-hole for Quad9's addresses (9.9.9.9, 149.112.112.112, 2620:fe::fe and 2620:fe::9) and configure a second resolver before November 24. Quad9's CTO wrote that it will probably use location filters to block French users, with errors possible.

Transcript

Why is a free DNS service leaving France?

0:00 Looking up an address is the most boring job on the internet. A French court put a daily penalty on a Swiss nonprofit over that job, and the nonprofit would rather leave the country. In this video, what did the court really order? Why can a lookup service not tell who is French? And who loses service? And the way Quad9 plans to switch France off has a twist in it. I will get to that at the end.

0:22 It's Friday, October twenty third, and this is The Daily Diff. A DNS resolver is the concierge who phones around for a website's number, then reads it back to you without asking your name. Quad9 runs one for free. It is a Swiss nonprofit foundation, its address is nine nine nine nine, and its protective setting refuses to look up known malware and phishing sites. Quad9 says it will stop serving users in France on Tuesday,

What did the Paris court order?

0:47 November twenty fourth. The trigger is a Paris court order about streams of women's tennis that the broadcaster beIN says infringe its rights. The order dates from May thirteenth. beIN holds the French rights to most of the women's tennis tour, and it asked the Paris court to make Google's resolver, the European Union's public resolver and Quad9 block a list of streaming sites until the last match of the season on November fourteenth.

1:11 The list began with six domain names. The media regulator Arcom keeps adding names, and it now stands at fifty eight. Quad9 appealed, but the order applied while the appeal was pending. In June a court bailiff found two of the listed sites still opening through Quad9. In September beIN went back to the judge and asked for daily penalties. beIN's case is short. There is an order, there is a bailiff's report, and Quad9 chose not to act. beIN asked for ten thousand euros a day for every listed domain still

1:41 reachable. With fifty eight domains, that is five hundred eighty thousand euros a day. On October twenty first the judge set one thousand euros a day, in total, until the order ends on November fourteenth. Quad9 puts that at about twenty four thousand euros. In the ruling, the judge wrote that Quad9 owes reasonable efforts and says it

What did the judge say about Quad9's defence?

2:01 makes none, and that this alone justifies a penalty. The judge also noted that Quad9 says it already filters dangerous domains for the whole world, so it had not shown that blocking for France was impossible.

Why did Cloudflare and the VPNs avoid the penalty?

2:12 Two weeks earlier, the same Paris court refused beIN the same kind of penalty against Cloudflare and two VPN providers. They had each blocked some of the sites. Cloudflare blocked three of four, through its content network. NordVPN and Surfshark blocked six of eleven. The standard was reasonable effort, and Quad9 says its count is zero out of fifty eight.

Why can a resolver not tell who is French?

2:33 Quad9's technical argument starts here. A lookup reaches the resolver as a name and a network address. There is no account behind it and no passport. To block only France, Quad9 says it would have to guess a country from that address using a location database, and it calls those databases incomplete and inaccurate. Germany taught Quad9 what a wrong guess costs. and Sony reached the blocked content through a VPN. It says the court found it had not complied and fined it.

3:03 It says it later won the case, after several years and six figures in costs. Blocking for everyone would satisfy the court, and Quad9 did that in Germany for a while. This time it says no, because a French order would then decide the lookups of people in every other country.

Who loses service on November 24?

3:19 So Quad9 leaves instead. Its post lists networks it sees in France. They include the Prime Minister's digital directorate, the research network Renater and the electricity company EDF. They also include the railway, Institut Pasteur and Marseille's public hospitals. Quad9 says the list is a sample, and that network numbers are not strictly tied to a country. If you run servers or pipelines, search your configs for Quad9's addresses.

3:44 The usual hiding places are routers, resolv dot conf and Docker daemons, plus CI runners and forwarders such as Pi-hole. Quad9 has not said how it will recognise French traffic, so pick a second resolver you trust before the twenty fourth. Quad9 argues that forcing a resolver to block a name is like holding a newspaper

Will blocking a lookup stop the streams?

4:03 in front of a stadium to hide a concert, because people can switch to thousands of other open resolvers. Other resolvers have felt the same pressure. Cisco's OpenDNS left France in twenty twenty four, and in March Google, Cloudflare and Cisco lost appeals against earlier blocking orders. Notice the dates. This order ends on November fourteenth, when the tennis season does, and Quad9 leaves ten days later.

4:27 It says about twenty more French cases are waiting, and that it cannot survive the penalties from all of them. The appeal on the original order is still pending. Also today, a Finnish deadline lands for Google.

What happened with Google in Finland?

4:37 The regulator ordered it to stop work at two planned data center sites by October twenty third. Google cleared about three hundred thirty hectares at one site and nearly two hundred at the other before the environmental assessments were finished. Google's Finland manager apologised, and the company says it acted in good faith. Now the twist I promised.

How will Quad9 cut off France?

4:56 On Hacker News, Quad9's CTO wrote that the company will probably use location filters to block French users after November twenty fourth. That is the method Quad9 says is unreliable. He accepts there may be errors, and says the point is to stay consistent about the answers it gives. If you'd rather read this than hear me say it, the diff lands in your inbox every morning, free at the daily diff dot dev, link below.

What gets the NEEDS REVIEW stamp?

5:19 So today's verdict is NEEDS REVIEW. Search your configs for Quad9 before the twenty fourth, because the legal fight is unfinished and your resolver should not depend on it. Subscribe, hit the bell, and tell me in the comments if you'd have stamped it differently. And that's the diff for today. I'm Niko from Axrisi. Merge responsibly.

Sources

1. Farewell, FranceQuad9
2. Judgment of 21 October 2026, RG 26/11882 (beIN Sports France v. Fondation Quad9)Tribunal judiciaire de Paris (published by Quad9)
3. DNS Resolver Quad9 Will Leave France After Court Orders Piracy Blocking PenaltyTorrentFreak
4. VPNs and Cloudflare Escape beIN's €10,000-a-Day Piracy Blocking PenaltiesTorrentFreak
5. DNS Resolver Quad9 Rejects French Piracy Blocks, Weighs Exit as beIN Seeks Up to €580K a DayTorrentFreak
6. Comment by Quad9's CTO on "Quad9 to exit France"Hacker News
7. DNS : Quad9 quitte la France après avoir été condamnée face à BeIN pour défaut de blocageNext
8. Tribunal judiciaire de Paris, 7 octobre 2026, RG 26/11881 (beIN Sports France v. Cloudflare)LibreJustice
9. Finland orders halt to work on two Google data centresBBC News
10. Google Finland head apologises for forest clearances at data centre sitesYle News
11. Google defends Finnish forest clearance as building inspector faces dismissalHelsinki Times