October 22, 2026
Quad9 Pulls Its Free DNS Service Out of France After Court-Ordered Blocking
Quad9, the nonprofit behind a free privacy-focused DNS resolver, will stop serving users in France on November 24, 2026. A French court ruled in favor of broadcaster beIN, ordering Quad9 to block DNS resolution for a set of domain names accused of piracy — for users located in France.
The court cut the penalty from €580,000 to €1,000 per day, but Quad9 says money was never the point. It calls recursive DNS a neutral, passive service and refuses to give users altered or dishonest answers. Filtering queries by geography, it argues, breaks its promise to protect privacy, block cyber threats, and keep the internet's naming system intact.
Quad9 says it regrets leaving French users without a privacy-respecting option that also meets European privacy law. The case shows a growing clash: courts want DNS providers to police piracy, while privacy-focused providers say that role destroys the trust their service runs on.