Quad9 DNS will leave France on November 24 after a court loss to beIN

Quad9, the free DNS resolver run by a Swiss non-profit, will stop serving users in France on November 24, 2026. In a post titled "Farewell, France," Quad9 says a French court ruled against it on October 21 in a case brought by beIN, the sports broadcaster. The ruling orders Quad9 to block a set of piracy domains for users in France, which Quad9 says it has no way to do.

A DNS resolver turns a web address into the numeric address computers use to connect. Quad9 runs one at 9.9.9.9 that also blocks known malicious domains, which it calls a free cyberprotection service.

How the case got here

The dispute began on May 13, 2026. At beIN Sports' request, a Paris court ordered Google, Quad9 and DNS4EU to block pirate streams of WTA tennis matches for users in France, TorrentFreak reports. DNS4EU is the EU-backed resolver run by Whalebone. The order started with six domains and grew to 58.

According to JustGeek, Google and DNS4EU applied the blocks and Quad9 did not. beIN first asked for a penalty of €2,000 per domain per day, which the court declined. It came back asking for €10,000 per domain per day. Across 58 domains, Quad9 says that would have reached €580,000 a day.

The October 21 ruling went against Quad9 but set a far smaller penalty. Quad9 says the court set €1,000 a day until the blocking ends on November 14. That comes to €24,000, before legal costs.

Why Quad9 says it cannot comply

The problem, Quad9 argues, is knowing who is in France. "There is no way we can determine which users this ruling applies to," the Quad9 post says. Quad9 keeps no records of its users. It says geolocating them by IP address is unreliable.

That left three options, JustGeek reports. Quad9 could block only in France and accept the errors, or block the 58 domains for everyone in the world. Instead, it chose to leave.

Quad9 also argues the blocking does not work. "Fighting piracy via DNS resolvers blocking is ineffective," the post says. It adds that an appeal is pending and that about 20 other cases are open, covering hundreds of domain names. A similar fight in Germany with Sony Music cost Quad9 a six-figure sum.

Not the first resolver to leave

Cisco's OpenDNS stopped serving France in June 2024 after an earlier blocking order, according to TorrentFreak and JustGeek. Quad9's post urges French citizens to contact their legislators and ARCOM, France's media regulator. It does not recommend a replacement resolver. It warns that other open services offer "lower trust, safety, and reliability."

What this means for developers

If you or your users are in France and rely on 9.9.9.9, you have about a month to switch.

• Find every place Quad9 is set. Check routers, VPN configs, systemd-resolved and /etc/resolv.conf, Docker daemon settings, CI runners and device management profiles. Browsers that use DNS over HTTPS may also be set to Quad9.
• Switch before the date, not after. Quad9 has not said what queries from France will return after November 24. Do not wait to find out from a broken build.
• Choose a replacement on purpose. Your ISP's resolver, another public resolver or one you run yourself are all options. Google and DNS4EU already apply French blocking orders, JustGeek reports, so they will filter the same domains Quad9 refused to block.
• Remember remote staff. Quad9's rule applies to users located in France, so laptops that travel there are affected too. Update shared device profiles, not just office networks.
• Watch the other cases. With about 20 more cases open, France may not be the last country Quad9 leaves.