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Man Sues Nation For Allegedly Seizing France.com, a Domain He Has Owned For Over 20 Years (arstechnica.com) 214

A French-born American has now sued his home country because, he claims, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has illegally seized a domain that he's owned since 1994: France.com. From a report: In the mid-1990s, Jean-Noel Frydman bought France.com from Web.com and set up a website to serve as a "digital kiosk" for Francophiles and Francophones in the United States. For over 20 years, Frydman built up a business (also known as France.com), often collaborating with numerous official French agencies, including the Consulate General in Los Angeles and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. However, sometime around 2015, that very same ministry initiated a lawsuit in France in an attempt to wrest control of the France.com domain away from Frydman.

Web.com locked the domain, and Frydman even roped in the Berkman Klein Center at Harvard Law School to intervene on his behalf. By September 2017, the Paris Court of Appeals ruled that France.com was violating French trademark law. Armed with this ruling, lawyers representing the French state wrote to Web.com demanding that the domain be handed over. Finally, on March 12, 2018, Web.com abruptly transferred ownership of the domain to the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The company did so without any formal notification to Frydman and no compensation. "I'm probably [one of Web.com's] oldest customers," Frydman told ArsTechnica. "I've been with them for 24 years... There's never been any cases against France.com, and they just did that without any notice. I've never been treated like that by any company anywhere in the world. If it happened to me, it can happen to anyone."

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Man Sues Nation For Allegedly Seizing France.com, a Domain He Has Owned For Over 20 Years

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  • Wow (Score:5, Insightful)

    by war4peace ( 1628283 ) on Sunday April 29, 2018 @05:07PM (#56525299)

    The world was always about who got more muscle.
    Between a private citizen and a government, the government usually wins.

    • Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)

      by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) * on Sunday April 29, 2018 @07:34PM (#56525857)
      Comment removed based on user account deletion
      • In that case you BECOME the government.

        • by jiriw ( 444695 )

          Only if you WANT to become the government. I guess if you are rich enough you may like the influence but not the hassle and a decent puppet works better than potentially your head under a guillotine (it's France we're talking about ;) ).

          • I didn't say you OFFICIALLY become the government.
            So the rephrased sentence is:

            "Between a private citizen and a government, the government (or whoever's behind it) usually wins."

    • You're referring to the golden rule, and it has been a thing since long before the concepts of "private" and "government" ever existed.

    • Always remember the immortal words of Sir Humphrey, “Prime Minister, the Dept of Foreign affairs is not there to do things, they are there to explain why things cant be done”

  • .gov? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by cob666 ( 656740 ) on Sunday April 29, 2018 @05:10PM (#56525319)
    Isn't this why there are top level .gov sites? I hope this guy gets his domain back or at least is rewarded substantial compensation for his loss. Web.com should also be penalized for just handing over a domain without notice.
    • Re:.gov? (Score:5, Informative)

      by Yaztromo ( 655250 ) on Sunday April 29, 2018 @05:28PM (#56525403) Homepage Journal

      Isn't this why there are top level .gov sites?

      No. .gov is reserved for US Government agencies only. They are not available to other countries. [wikipedia.org]

      Most other countries use a second-level domain against their country level domain for Government specific sites, like Canada's .gc.ca domain.

      Yaz

    • Re:.gov? (Score:4, Informative)

      by mrvan ( 973822 ) on Sunday April 29, 2018 @05:30PM (#56525413)

      Not to make too fine a point, but .gov is for US government website. All other countries get a TLD (.fr for France) which they are (AFAIK) free to administer as they please. So, France could have reserved france.fr, france.gov.fr, or maybe even just http://fr/ [fr] (not sure of the specs here)

      In any case, although there might be issues with naming your company after a foreign country, one would expect a bit more due process here.

      • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

        by Anonymous Coward

        So, France could have reserved france.fr, france.gov.fr, or maybe

        *In best disgusted Parisian accent*

        Tu veux dire france.gouv.fr, avec un 'u'.

        Yankee ignorant, va!

      • Re:.gov? (Score:5, Informative)

        by mysidia ( 191772 ) on Sunday April 29, 2018 @09:46PM (#56526349)

        All other countries get a TLD (.fr for France) which they are (AFAIK) free to administer as they please.

        There's something you've misunderstood....
          TLDs such as .fr don't "Belong" to the country --- Yes, the local government will be _consulted_ in the process of appointing a ccTLD manager (to allow the government to offer any objections it might have), but the ccTLDs are not owned by, run by, or controlled by any "government"; the ccTLDs get delegated to a corporation or other entity that applies to have the ccTLD delegated and thus become the ccTLD manager, and the requirements to have the ccTLD delegated include that the operation must be "In the public interest" for the benefit of the community represented by the ccTLD.

        There's an application / delegation process, and ultimately there's a decision made by the internet community in regards to appointing ccTLD managers, and it's the ccTLD manager that decides the registration policies.

      • So, France could have reserved france.fr, france.gov.fr, or

        If they were going to reserve anything they would have reserved it under {something}.gouv.fr .... which they already do.

        But interestingly enough I can find few if any governments that host tourist information under their .gov.tld domains. You will find info on travelling to Australia at Australia.com and not australia.gov.au for example.

    • Isn't this why there are top level .gov sites?

      France.com is not running a government site. Just because the government owns it doesn't mean it isn't being used for commercial purposes.

      Feel like visiting Australia? You're better off going to http://www.australia.com/ [australia.com] than you are http://www.australia.gov.au/ [australia.gov.au]

      Likewise the French government domains are hosted under {purpose}.gouv.fr

    • Or it might be attempt to transfer the kind of considerations that already happen between domain-squatters and trademarks.

      But adapted to Geographic Indication instead of brand-names (which is really *serious business* in France. They were the first country to have official law in place for GI with their AOC - "Appellation d'origin protégée")

      In other way, just as some random schmuck shouldn't be allowed to register "coca-cola.com" (it's a protected trademark) even if it's a fan page and forum t

  • by Type44Q ( 1233630 ) on Sunday April 29, 2018 @05:43PM (#56525457)
    Just be glad that you're not a Pacific island, a Greenpeace vessel or a goose.
  • Eminent domain? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Midnight Thunder ( 17205 ) on Sunday April 29, 2018 @05:51PM (#56525493) Homepage Journal

    Is this not a form of eminent domain, but at TLD level? Also, France is very big on pushing for control over regions as trademarks. For example, unless you are in the region of Champagne you can't user that as a label for your sparkling wine.

    In many ways the guy owning the domain should have probably seen it coming and had a backup domain name? Do I think the people who decided to force control, instead of providing warning and discourse, aren't probably arrogant a holes? I do, but as the little guy what can your really do except make noise and just marketing a new domain. Hopefully he wins his case, but I am not too optimistic.

    • by mysidia ( 191772 )

      In many ways the guy owning the domain should have probably seen it coming and had a backup domain name?

      The guy owning the domain should have seen it coming and placed a $300/Year REGISTRY LOCK [verisign.com] on the domain so that not even the domain registrar would be able to make changes to it without Verisign calling up the registrant and receiving permission to temporarily unlock the domain for changes.

  • FranceEstMerde.com isn't taken :D
  • by Solandri ( 704621 ) on Sunday April 29, 2018 @06:35PM (#56525603)
    It was implemented [icann.org] after the "Wild West" style of domain name registration, ownership, and transfer in the 1990s. The dispute goes through ICANN and is resolved by ICANN, not some French court. There's a section of the domain name dispute resolution policy specifically earmarked for trademarks. The trademark holder files the claim with ICANN, who receives evidence from both sides and grinds the wheels for a while, before deciding who ultimately gets the domain name. At that point, the registrar transfers ownership. France using the French court decision to pressure web.com to turn over ownership to them is probably illegal, even if they are correct that they own the trademark on "France".

    (Also, I seriously doubt the French government holds a legitimate claim to the International trademark on "France". If that were possible, then China could register "China" as a trademark, and force all websites to cease using the word "China" in ways the Chinese government didn't like.)
  • ..When the government takes property from private citizens, something called eminent domain or something?
  • shouldn't the be going after all domains that have France in them and commercial services/products that use the word France?

  • by Required Snark ( 1702878 ) on Sunday April 29, 2018 @08:38PM (#56526031)
    Even if he wins, he will never get to use that domain name in the future. The most he could recover would be a fraction of the annual income he made from the site for a handful of years. And since he's filing the lawsuit in the US, it's not clear if he could collect even if he wins.

    What could he do, place a lien of the French embassy in Washington? It's extra-territorial so US law does not apply.

    He's reduced to filing what is a effectively a nuance suit that will be settled for a pittance because he has no leverage.

  • 1. Do not try to grab major-name domains at the "country/state" level. Govs hate when you try and muscle in on "their" crap.

    2. Suck it up, rename your page something like France-Expats.com or France-info.com and save yourself thousands of $$ -- and years of pointless court delays.

    3. Yes it sucks. But you're never getting it back. Be realistic and move on.

    • 3. Yes it sucks. But you're never getting it back. Be realistic and move on.

      He might never get the domain back. But he could at least some hefty damages compensations back from web.com. And web.com are under the reach of US courts. Go for it!

  • ... is available. Frydman should just move his site to that one.

  • Domain theft no less (Score:2, Interesting)

    by xenobyte ( 446878 )

    France can have france.fr or similar.

    France.com belong to the guy who registrered it first and are using it properly.

    Oh, and the name of a nation is not a registered trademark.

  • by Bodhammer ( 559311 ) on Monday April 30, 2018 @11:17AM (#56530029)
    So france.com surrendered? Shocked, I tell you, Shocked.

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