A resolver chooses exit over compliance
Quad9, a free nonprofit DNS resolver, has said it will stop serving users in France on Tuesday, November 24, 2026. Quad9 explained in an October 22 post that French courts ordered it to block domains tied to unlicensed streams of sports broadcasts, in a case brought by the broadcaster beIN. EFF reported the departure on October 27, quoting Quad9 that its choices were to extend French law worldwide by blocking globally, or to try to block only French users, which it says it cannot do reliably without undermining its privacy model.
This is not a US government-ordered shutdown, and we found none in the past 60 days. But the case bears directly on a live American question: whether Congress should make neutral network infrastructure enforce private copyright claims by blocking at the network level.
The strongest case for blocking
The argument for court-ordered blocking deserves a fair statement. Foreign pirate sites sit beyond the reach of US process, takedown notices do nothing against operators who ignore them, and live sports is perishable: a stream blocked a week later has already done its damage. Rightsholders also note that the French order came from a court, not an administrative agency, and that Quad9 won a concession: the court cut the penalty from €580,000 to €1,000 per day, according to Quad9.
Why the French result should worry Washington
The case shows how these orders behave once they meet a privacy-preserving, globally operated service. A resolver answers queries without knowing who the user is or where they are, and Quad9 argues that finding out would defeat its purpose. So a national order becomes a choice between global censorship and withdrawal. Quad9 chose withdrawal, and EFF notes it also faces about 20 other pending French cases seeking similar blocks.
The outcome is also poor even on rightsholders' terms. As EFF put it, Quad9's decision "will not remove any allegedly infringing material from the internet." Users in France can switch to another resolver, and the sites remain online. A privacy-protective option disappears while piracy continues. That is a bad trade for users and an ineffective one for enforcement.
The American parallel: the DEFEND IP Act
The US bill most like the French orders is the DEFEND IP Act of 2026, House bill H.R. 10575 and Senate bill S. 5529. Rep. Zoe Lofgren's September 24 announcement says it requires every blocking order to go through a US court, with detailed evidence of harm. It limits orders to large-scale foreign piracy sites and gives providers immunity for complying. Those are real improvements over SOPA-era drafts, and the sponsors deserve credit for them.
The design still leaves open the problem Quad9 faces. TorrentFreak reports that the bill covers broadband providers with at least 50,000 subscribers and public DNS resolvers with more than $100 million in annual revenue, and exempts VPN-only services and resolvers that operate exclusively through encrypted DNS protocols. That report notes the word "exclusively" leaves room for interpretation. We could not retrieve the bill text from Congress.gov, so these thresholds rest on that report.
The revenue thresholds are a sensible instinct, since they spare small operators. But they do not answer the French lesson. A large resolver that cannot geolocate users will face the same dilemma Quad9 did: block for everyone, or leave the market. A revenue test also creates a cliff, where growth itself brings blocking duties.
EFF's October 2 analysis argues that the bill offers no deterrent against bad-faith blocking requests and no remedy for users whose lawful speech disappears with a blocked site, leaving site owners to "find a lawyer and go to court." That critique goes to the proportionality of the remedy rather than the legitimacy of the goal.
What a proportionate approach looks like
Copyright enforcement against foreign pirates is a legitimate objective, and we do not suggest otherwise. But Congress can pursue it without conscripting neutral infrastructure:
- Keep resolvers out of scope. Target payment processors, ad networks and hosting providers, which have commercial relationships with the sites and can act on a specific customer.
- Require a user-facing remedy. Anyone whose lawful content is blocked should have a fast route to contest an order, with penalties for abusive requests.
- Add sunset and reporting rules. Orders should expire, and courts and providers should publish how many domains are blocked and how often orders are challenged.
- Protect encryption and privacy. No provider should be pushed to log or geolocate users to comply.
The broader risk is precedent. If neutral services build blocking systems for copyright, the same machinery becomes available to anyone who wants other speech suppressed. Quad9 will be gone from France in less than two weeks. Congress should weigh that result before building similar duties into US law.