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

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."

Comments

Wow

[war4peace]

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

Re:Wow

[ArmoredDragon]

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

Re: Wow

[Anonymous Coward]

Protip: If you're gonna pull that type of chicanery wait more than the minimum amount of time between anonymous postings to reply to yourself.

Re:Wow

[Anonymous Coward]

Then why didn't Hillary Clinton's donors buy her the government?

Re:Wow

[war4peace]

In that case you BECOME the government.

Re: Wow

[Anonymous Coward]

A blue wave is coming. Prepare for it you piece of shit.

A "blue wave"?

Christ, you are a fucking moron.

Re: Wow

[Anonymous Coward]

No, that's a Russian propagandist playing both sides.

Stop being an idiot.

Re:Wow

[Anonymous Coward]

Because the anal Kock bros bought it.

Re:Wow

[jiriw]

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 ;) ).

Re:Wow

[war4peace]

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."

Re:Wow

[Anonymous Coward]

Mr. Frydman is of course the legal owner of france.com under the laws of the United States of America. However, that domain is in violation of the trademark laws of the Fifth Republic, to the extent that the subject and his company do business in France.

He should sue Web.com for violating his property rights as the Fifth Republic cannot confiscate the property of American citizens and businesses even if a French court rules that it can and should.

Re: Wow

[Anonymous Coward]

Believe me, that republicans have just as many people like that.

Re:Wow

[Falconhell]

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”

Re:Wow

[eric_harris_76]

Then why didn't Hillary Clinton's donors buy her the government?

They tried, but for a large fraction of the electorate, the media's dislike of a candidate is taken as an endorsement of the candidate. For some people, no amount of advertising or campaign coverage can overcome that kind of "endorsement".

Plus, a lot of the voters who disliked Donald Trump found her to be even less appealing.

Let's let that soak in for a while. More despicable than Donald Trump.

By the votes, a bad year for the statutory duopoly parties. But a good year for the alternatives: candidates of second-class parties, abstaining on that race, staying the hell away from the polls.

Re: Wow

[Bodhammer]

Is a blue wave like a blue waffle? (Asking for friend)

.gov?

[cob666]

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?

[Anonymous Coward]

I remember when whitehouse.com was a porn site!

Re:.gov?

[Yaztromo]

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.

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?

[mrvan]

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/ (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:.gov?

[Anonymous Coward]

Right, this is what .fr is for. Le fucking duh. Stupid fucking french assholes.

Re:.gov?

[Carewolf]

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.

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

Yaz

No most countries do not do that. Only a small handful of countries ever had two level domains, and most of them are slowly getting rid of them now.

Re:.gov?

[Anonymous Coward]

And even they now can buy .france TLD if they want...

Re:.gov?

[war4peace]

.co.uk being one of them?

Re:.gov?

[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?

[Yaztromo]

List of international .gov two-level domain equivalents

That's more than a handful.

Yaz

Re:.gov?

[Anonymous Coward]

It is a small handful. Compared to the total number of countries in the world.

A handful is not the 5 fingers, but what a hand can grab.

Re:.gov?

[Mal-2]

There are 58 countries on the list, and around 200 countries in the world. >25% is not "a small handful", and neither is 58.

Re:.gov?

[youngone]

Check out this strip club it still is really.

They used to do an Independence Day thing with US flags all over the place, which annoyed the US Consulate just down the road no end.

Re:.gov?

[DontBeAMoran]

But 58 is a small handful for those native to the Alkergoifa star system.

Re:.gov?

[Anonymous Coward]

No most countries do not do that. Only a small handful of countries ever had two level domains, and most of them are slowly getting rid of them now.

Seeing as the original argument being countered was that all governments in the world used the top-level .gov, I too still fail to see why you are arguing that point at all.

You are simply wrong. .gov belongs to the US government only, not any other.

Re:.gov?

[Anonymous Coward]

www.france.com redirects to www.france.fr anyway.

Re:.gov?

[sjames]

If they choose not to, that's on them, not everyone else. The fact remains, France has a TLD that is entirely under it's control. If they want an official government domain, that's a good place to put it.

Re:.gov?

[Anonymous Coward]

France does have their own gtld though .fr so why are they stealing american owned gtlds .com from American citizens.. there is something very wrong here..

Re:.gov?

[mysidia]

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.

Re:.gov?

[Mal-2]

Last I checked, Alkergoifa didn't have its own top level domain so they can just butt right out of this. :)

Re:.gov?

[Anonymous Coward]

Have is this an earth handful or a median Alkergoifan lifeforms handful?

Re:.gov?

[Calydor]

Well it does NOW.

Re:.gov?

[Anonymous Coward]

By "a small handful" do you mean "all apart from the USA"?

Re:.gov?

[Anonymous Coward]

Alkergoifa has no hits on Google. Where is it and how can I get there to preserve my privacy?

Re:.gov?

[thegarbz]

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/ than you are http://www.australia.gov.au/

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

Re:.gov?

[thegarbz]

like Canada's .gc.ca domain.

Missed the obvious opportunity to point to France's gouv.fr domain. :-)

Re:.gov?

[thegarbz]

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.

Re: .gov?

[Anonymous Coward]

You get up enough speed, do a sudden 180 then go straight up, past Uranus and don't stop (yesterday's story leaking there).

Re:.gov?

[Anonymous Coward]

The TLD hostname should not have an A record attached according to the spec. I guess this makes sense to avoid collisions with hostnames in the local search namespace. Imagine https://dev/ returning an ip.

Re:.gov?

[Anonymous Coward]

Alkergoifa has no hits on Google.

It has now.

Re:.gov?

[Teun]

I doubt the US consulate cares, back home they have lots of strip clubs and other shady businesses every day flying their national flag.

Re:.gov?

[The-Ixian]

There are 58 countries on the list, and around 200 countries in the world. >25% is not "a small handful", and neither is 58.

But it isn't "most" either...

Re:.gov?

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't think he was arguing that they had a stake in this argument, but more using their small hands to illustrate the fact that "handful" is a fairly subjective term. Interestingly, I was just reading a theory the other day that Donald Trump could possibly be part Alkergoifan...

Re:.gov?

[Anonymous Coward]

They're probably just annoyed at the increase in drunken foot traffic caused by patrons of the strip club going into "the building with the American flags".

Re:.gov?

[Anonymous Coward]

That's because TLDs are pretty useless in practice.
To most people a domain name is a brand name and the ".com" part is just the part of that weird incantation that makes the computer work (along with "www.").

The only reason we still have TLDs (and are getting more of them over time) is that companies will register the same address under all tld's they know about to prevent squatters using "their brand" so it's cash cow for the people handing out domain names. Not because it turned out to be useful to be able to have a France.com and a France.gov.fr that are different things with no relation to each other.

Re:.gov?

[Anonymous Coward]

No most countries do not do that. Only a small handful of countries ever had two level domains, and most of them are slowly getting rid of them now.

Seeing as the original argument being countered was that all governments in the world used the top-level .gov, I too still fail to see why you are arguing that point at all.

You are simply wrong. .gov belongs to the US government only, not any other.

Some smartass in the US government needs to register "France.gov". See what the Frenchies do then!

Re:.gov?

[youngone]

It's also really annoying how the US Consulate staff refuse to take their clothes off, even if the punters throw money at them.

Re:.gov?

[datavirtue]

What are we going to do for Mars, the moon? How will internet aliens know how to access the right web pages and target the correct email address?

Re:.gov?

[Carewolf]

List of international .gov two-level domain equivalents

That's more than a handful.

Yaz

I have big hands :D

Still it definitely isn't most.

business's do it all the time

[Anonymous Coward]

It's called squatting, if they can do it, why can't a country? Stop crying.

Re: business's do it all the time

[Anonymous Coward]

Squatting is when the domain is just parked with nothing useful. The description, if accurate sounds like a legitimate, active site.

I'm assuming this either rests on some particular nuance of French law, or a misuse of copyrighted content from the French government within the site.

Re: business's do it all the time

[darkain]

Wayback Machine confirms the site was pretty much a tourism / travel agency site for France. https://web.archive.org/web/20...

Re: business's do it all the time

[jonwil]

In what universe does French law apply to a domain hosted and managed in the US by a US company?

Re: business's do it all the time

[hey!]

Apparently this one.

Re: business's do it all the time

[Anonymous Coward]

In the same universe that the US likes to apply it's law all over the world.

If you do it to others, do not act surprised when others do the same to you.

Re: business's do it all the time

[nctritech]

The registrar handed the domain over. They could have said "no, we're not a French company and it's not a French TLD, kick rocks" but they didn't. The actual hand-over probably has nothing to do with French law.

Re: business's do it all the time

[Anonymous Coward]

And if the Bush administration hadn't had ICANN abusing it's authority to seize domain names, I doubt that would have been necessary. Let's put credit where credit is due.

Re: business's do it all the time

[Fly Swatter]

The political universe. You know, the one where mere citizens have no rights.

Re: business's do it all the time

[Anonymous Coward]

The registrar handed the domain over.

The registrar did not own the domain. The registrar did not "hand the domain over." The registrar stole a domain they were paid to maintain a registry of. They stole what they sold from their customer to give to a foreign government.

The actual hand-over probably has nothing to do with French law.

Right, it has to do with US law. Specifically property theft, conspiracy to commit a crime, and possession of stolen property. The people responsible at the registrar deserve to be prosecuted and jailed along with all the other criminals.

Re: business's do it all the time

[Anonymous Coward]

French law should apply to .fr and US law should apply to .com, but The Daily Stormer got their .com stolen by an Internet company too. I suppose .com belongs to the corporations.

Re: business's do it all the time

[TheReaperD]

Post to cancel moderation.

Re: business's do it all the time

[ArmoredDragon]

Bush didn't have ICANN do anything. The US has the authority to seize domain names that are within its TLDs, like all countries do. Among those TLDs that are within the US's jurisdiction are .org, .com and .net.

Re: business's do it all the time

[Dog-Cow]

It's not that the law applies, it's that web.com are wimpy piles of shit who rolled over for a tyrannical government.

Re: business's do it all the time

[Anonymous Coward]

Then a US court can return france.com

Re: business's do it all the time

[AmiMoJo]

Maybe there is more going on here than we assume. If the French court's ruling had been ignored it would have just added more pressure to take control of the domain name system off an American private company.

Or maybe Web.com just didn't want to get sued by the French government.

Re: business's do it all the time

[Anonymous Coward]

THIS!

.gov TLD

[www.goatse.ru]

You know, this is PRECISELY why government TLDs exist. The .com TLD stands for commercial.

Is France going after every TLD now?

How about france.bargains?
france.coupons, anyone?
Perhaps france.mom should be surrendered...
france.singles certainly serves some governmental function
Or france.tattoo, needed by the Ministry of Tattoos to license and sell tattoo services.

The French government knew that they would lose the case in any court other than their own, so they put pressure on someone with no rights to the TLD to seize the property of its rightful owner.

Re:.gov TLD

[LynnwoodRooster]

Too bad france.sucks is already taken, I'd register it and just link back to this /. story about how France, well, sucks.

Re:.gov TLD

[Anonymous Coward]

The irony of Americans complaining about other countries laws trying to force extraterritorial jurisdiction, and on the Internet no less. You and all the parents just made my day.

Re:.gov TLD

[Anonymous Coward]

You know, this is PRECISELY why government TLDs exist. The .com TLD stands for commercial.

Is France going after every TLD now?

How about france.bargains?
france.coupons, anyone?
Perhaps france.mom should be surrendered...
france.singles certainly serves some governmental function
Or france.tattoo, needed by the Ministry of Tattoos to license and sell tattoo services.

The French government knew that they would lose the case in any court other than their own, so they put pressure on someone with no rights to the TLD to seize the property of its rightful owner.

.gov TLD is for United States government agencies.
  France has the .fr TLD though to organize as they see fit.

Re:.gov TLD

[Anonymous Coward]

You know, France is free to enforce its laws on the Minitel network.

Re:.gov TLD

[Anonymous Coward]

That's not irony, just you being angry.

Re:.gov TLD

[MrL0G1C]

Not mutually exclusive, UK uses both like ministry.gov.uk

Re:.gov TLD

[Anonymous Coward]

France.com tried to register its name as a trademark in France in 2015. France itself recieved that trademark by declaring prior use on the word France. From that point onward France.com was in violation of the trademark it tried to get and France sued them for it. They sued in France since France.com was in violation of a French/European trademark.

Moral of the story: don't try to trademark country names, it wont end well for you. Alternatively: Check if you have a valid claim to your trademark before registering it.

Re:.gov TLD

[thegarbz]

The .com TLD stands for commercial.

What is this 1992? .com stands for common. Okay it doesn't really but the point is that if you don't own the .com domain you probably aren't worth even being around at this day and age. Like the ISPs and network providers who have .com instead of .net.

By the way speaking of commercial, France.com doesn't direct to the government site, but rather a more tourist information oriented site. That is quite consistent with the ways many other governments use their domains. Australia.com gives you holidays in Australia. Holland.com is ironically enough the tourist information site for the Netherlands despite the people there hating the confusion between the two.

Oh.... LOL hahahahah Click here: http://www.germany.com/ and read the FAQ too. :-)

Re:.gov TLD

[Anonymous Coward]

Hit a nerve!

Re:.gov TLD

[dcw3]

What about expanding TLDs to...

France.fries
France.maids
France.kiss
France.tickler

Re:.gov TLD

[rikkards]

It is exclusive. The T in TLD stands for Top. The UK's TLD is .uk just like .fr is for France and .ca is for Canada.
You will never see a government organization outside the US use .gov.

Re: .gov TLD

[Anonymous Coward]

We built the internet, the rule on the internet should be follow US rules or you get kicked out of DNS and null routed

Re:.gov TLD

[Anonymous Coward]

You know, this is PRECISELY why government TLDs exist. The .com TLD stands for commercial.

Many countries like to pretend that their politicians can't be bought. That's not important to France, they even advertise it Buy your french politician today on france.com. Highest bidder wins, of course.

Why else would a government want a commercial domain, rather than a national and/or government domain?

Re:.gov TLD

[Anonymous Coward]

Like the ISPs and network providers who have .com instead of .net.

They probably have both. Just like they have both a network operations department and a marketing department.

Because they are selling internet access, they are both in the "selling" (commercial - .com) and "internet" (network - .net) business.

Re:.gov TLD

[Anonymous Coward]

So, I can't make a film named "Brazil" or a book named "Congo"? or a video game named "Detroit"

Re:.gov TLD

[s_p_oneil]

Sure you can, you just can't trademark the name to prevent others from doing so. It's like when Warner Brothers tried to stop others from using the name "Casablanca". They got egg on their face. If the poster you replied to is correct, this asshat tried to trademark the name "France" in France, which you have to admit is pretty stupid. If so, it may be the only reason they even bothered to notice him.

Re:.gov TLD

[Anonymous Coward]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.com .com equals commercial not common.

Re:.gov TLD

[Anonymous Coward]

The irony of Americans complaining about other countries laws trying to force extraterritorial jurisdiction, and on the Internet no less. You and all the parents just made my day.

1. How do you know they are Americans?
2. If they complain when the US does it as well, doesn't that make it less ironic?

I'm an American and I disagree with a great deal of what my government does on the international (and national) stage. Does that mean I cannot criticize other governments?

Re:.gov TLD

[Spazmania]

web.com is a Florida company. It should not be surrendering domain names without a proper order from a U.S. court.

Re:.gov TLD

[Anonymous Coward]

You missed the point.

He appears to be saying that France cheated in their own court.
In saying that they owned the copyright to 'France' they contradicted themselves, but failed to mention that to the court.

Re:.gov TLD

[Anonymous Coward]

The irony of Americans complaining about other countries laws trying to force extraterritorial jurisdiction, and on the Internet no less. You and all the parents just made my day.

Seems like you're implying Americans are hypocritical because they exercise extraterritorial jurisdiction, then complain when other countries do the same. The problem with this implication is that it assumes that Americans are a single homogeneous group. There's a name for this type of generalization:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stereotype

Re:.gov TLD

[Jadecristal]

Well, one suspects that they will be seeing a lawsuit - *in* US court(s) - soon, and I forsee damages not-in-their-favor...

Re:.gov TLD

[Teun]

Frankrijk.com (Dutch name of the country France) is still run by a Belgian guy registered in Malta.

Unfortunately the French happen to spell France similar to the English.
If not Jean-Noël could still own the site.

Re:.gov TLD

[Anonymous Coward]

Most Germans dislike Nazis. Do you also find that amusing?

Re:.gov TLD

[Archfeld]

The US claims to own "...of America" They grandfathered in a few old businesses like Bank of America, but you can't name a business of America these days.

Re:.gov TLD

[Chelloveck]

.gov TLD is for United States government agencies. France has the .fr TLD though to organize as they see fit.

This is why I want to see the abolishment of all TLDs except the country TLDs. No more .com, .org, .gov, etc. You want a virtual presence in a country? Follow that country's rules to get your name there. If there's a conflict between two parties over a domain name settle it in the courts of whichever country owns the ccTLD.

Re:.gov TLD

[datavirtue]

"france.mom should be surrendered"

compelling....

Re:.gov TLD

[datavirtue]

That is not a bad idea. Auctioning off politicians. It is sort of how it works now but this would seem to democratize it a bit more.

Re:.gov TLD

[Anonymous Coward]

You know, this is PRECISELY why government TLDs exist. The .com TLD stands for commercial.

Is France going after every TLD now?

How about france.bargains?
france.coupons, anyone?
Perhaps france.mom should be surrendered...
france.singles certainly serves some governmental function
Or france.tattoo, needed by the Ministry of Tattoos to license and sell tattoo services.

The French government knew that they would lose the case in any court other than their own, so they put pressure on someone with no rights to the TLD to seize the property of its rightful owner.

Of course. The French government owns France: the land, the language, the people, the culture, and the history. The French government has supreme authority and ultimate control of the totality of "France". The French government is a totalitarian regime.

Just be glad...

[Type44Q]

Just be glad that you're not a Pacific island, a Greenpeace vessel or a goose.

Re:Just be glad...

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm too big to be on a goose.

Ha Ha! Not your internet.

[Anonymous Coward]

Silly plebs, thinking they could own digital property. That's for the corporations son, now pick up that can.

Eminent domain?

[Midnight Thunder]

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.

Re:Eminent domain?

[techno-vampire]

France isn't the only place that this happens. The European Commission has declared that only cheese from three counties can be called Stilton, with the result that cheese made in the village of Stilton can't use that name.

Re:Eminent domain?

[Anonymous Coward]

But isn't France a member of the European Commission?

What about all of the private and personal user information that browsers are still sending to france.com where the users are explicitly sharing that info with this mans business and not the french government?

If I recall the penalty for leaking this much personal information was a few billion dollars when France and the rest claimed Google did the same thing.

Being a government that amount should be significantly higher.

I say revoking .fr from its current registrar to be handed over to this guy is almost enough compensation for his loss and the worse-than-murder crime of personal information leaking (their own words)

Re:Eminent domain?

[mysidia]

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 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.

Re:Eminent domain?

[Anonymous Coward]

No, the EU commission does not get to decide this, in the real world rather than the one the Daily Mail inhabits. The British government requested it, based on a request from producers. In other news, banana quality regulations were requested by... the UK, as they favoured high quality product from Commonwealth nations.

Re:Eminent domain?

[Anonymous Coward]

Checking on this, the village of Stilton didn't apply to be able to call cheese from there Stilton, but then it wasn't producing any anyway, nor did the cheese originate from there either.

Re:Eminent domain?

[Anonymous Coward]

Stilton is the brand name. It's a village on the Great North Road in England, now bypassed. It was the main point of sale for this particular variety of cheese. The cheese was never made there.

This is one of many protected brands, including Champagne.

This is not news.

Re:Eminent domain?

[vakuona]

Someone could have fun with this.

What if I attempted to make and sell cheese, made in Stilton?

Re:Eminent domain?

[techno-vampire]

That's not a problem. Calling it "Stilton Cheese" would be.

FranceEstMerde.com

[b0s0z0ku]

FranceEstMerde.com isn't taken :D

Re:FranceEstMerde.com

[Anonymous Coward]

And for good reason, that's bad grammar. You can't just literally translate "France is shit" and expect it to be proper French.
"La France c'est de la merde", would be slightly better. Or perhaps "La France au toilet".

Re:FranceEstMerde.com

[DontBeAMoran]

LaFranceEstMerdique.com

Re:FranceEstMerde.com

[Anonymous Coward]

France shit is...

Re: FranceEstMerde.com

[Tsolias]

"La France au toilet"
That sounds like a perfume.

Re:FranceEstMerde.com

[Cederic]

Speaking from personal experience of how to upset them, may I recommend FrenchCunts.com

Re:FranceEstMerde.com

[Godwin O'Hitler]

The French don't hesitate to reduce their language to the bare bones when convenient. FranceMerde is all that's needed.

Re:FranceEstMerde.com

[Anonymous Coward]

France Merde would be an excellent name for a new TV channel, or a telecom operator. Merde France for a logistics or transport company, or for a sewer and toilet company.

Vive le Marché Libre

[fibonacci8]

On October 1, 2016 ICANN ended its contract with the United States Department of Commerce National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) and entered the private sector.
Citation: https://www.icann.org/news/ann...

Congress didn't renew the contract, the Republican majority congress... Thanks Obama!

Re: Vive le Marché Libre

[Anonymous Coward]

Im so confused. Are you blaming Obama (a democrat) OR the republican majority congress?

Re:Vive le Marché Libre

[will_die]

https://www.npr.org/sections/a...

Re: Vive le Marché Libre

[Anonymous Coward]

Whichever team is the wrong team!

Get a better registrar

[Anonymous Coward]

The moral appears to be don't register domains with companies that are going to voluntarily transfer domains without putting up a fight.

Until web.com are in receipt of a court order from a court with jurisdiction demanding WEB.COM transfer the domain, they should be doing nothing.

Re:Get a better registrar

[moronoxyd]

The moral appears to be don't register domains with companies that are going to voluntarily transfer domains without putting up a fight.

I'd say the moral is: Don't apply for a trademark for "France" when there is a country that has been using that name long before your company France.com was around. Otherwise you loose that trademark to the country called France which then has every right to demand your domain France.com from you.

France.com wanted to much and lost everything. They have nobody to blame but themselves.

what could you buy on france.com?

[Anonymous Coward]

insufficiently cooked meat, mushy cheese, tiny cars, ...?

Re:what could you buy on france.com?

[Anonymous Coward]

The cheese isn't shaped like toilet paper squares at least.

There's a procedure for seizing domain names

[Solandri]

It was implemented 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.)

Re:There's a procedure for seizing domain names

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't give them any ideas.

Re:There's a procedure for seizing domain names

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't give them any ideas.

only a real idiot thinks that anyone looks to slashdot for ideas

Re:There's a procedure for seizing domain names

[PeteJanda]

If France owns the trademark on "France", then I own the trademark on "homo sapiens" and "human".

Re: There's a procedure for seizing domain names

[Brockmire]

He never said they were good ideas.

Re:There's a procedure for seizing domain names

[mysidia]

The ICANN process is laborious and expensive.... If the registration violates the cybersquatting act in the US, then it can actually be more efficient sometimes to sue in federal court under the cybersquatting act.

And get the judge to sign an order directing the registrar, registry-operator, ICANN, Etc, to transfer ownership of the domain to the plaintiff

Re:There's a procedure for seizing domain names

[Anonymous Coward]

for some unknowable reason, the link points to slashdot.cn .

Re:There's a procedure for seizing domain names

[Anonymous Coward]

France owns the trademark France.com , which is the one France.com Inc tried to register in 2015. Basically France.com kicked of a chain reaction in 2015 and now tries to look innocent while blaming France for this mess.

Re:There's a procedure for seizing domain names

[drew_kime]

I thought the same, but moronoxyd cleared it up for me.

Isn't there a name for this ...

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

..When the government takes property from private citizens, something called eminent domain or something?

Re:Isn't there a name for this ...

[Anonymous Coward]

Im pretty sure eminent domain really only falls into play with things like real property where the govt might need all or part of the land for public use like roads or utilities. Im pretty sure it doesn't fall under domains or the US govt would have taken control of whitehouse.com which for some time was actually a porn site. it appears to be some kind of political blog these days.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whitehouse.com

Re:Isn't there a name for this ...

[AHuxley]

Tyranny.
The French call it the inquisitorial system.

Re:Isn't there a name for this ...

[cellocgw]

Tyranny.
The French call it the inquisitorial system.

No no no, that's the Spanish!

Re: Isn't there a name for this ...

[Reverend Green]

NO ONE expects the French Inquisition!

Wait what?

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't get the "alleged" part. That's EXACTLY what they did.

If France is trademarked

[future assassin]

shouldn't the be going after all domains that have France in them and commercial services/products that use the word France?

Re:If France is trademarked

[aaarrrgggh]

And all maps, too!

Re:If France is trademarked

[Anonymous Coward]

No, you can get a license to use France or French in your domain name.

Please, not again.

[Anonymous Coward]

Someone please tell me we're not going to do that Freedom Fries bullshit again.

So much for...

[Anonymous Coward]

French fries.

Next Stop Sue ICANN, and Web.com

[Anonymous Coward]

Go after them for damages.. and get the best most expensive lawyer money can buy because your going to win. Then sue the French government. Then get a full page ad in the NTY and post a meme that says F^&K the French, because lets face it they are all arrogant pricks.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

9/10th the law

[Anonymous Coward]

Contrary to popular opinion. Possession isn't 9/10ths of the law.

Re:How is this even possible

[AHuxley]

The US gave that away for free to be all international.

He will never get the domain name back

[Required Snark]

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.

Re:He will never get the domain name back

[Anonymous Coward]

It's extra-territorial so US law does not apply.

Try telling the USA that.

Re:He will never get the domain name back

[Anonymous Coward]

The US can order the DNS records corrected. Web.com screwed this up in the US, not in France.

Re:He will never get the domain name back

[BlueUnderwear]

... and I'm sure web.com has plenty of valuable property in the US which he could seize or put a lien on.

Why o why didn't he sue web.com?

Re:He will never get the domain name back

[Anonymous Coward]

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

Most embassies actually aren't extraterritorial:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diplomatic_mission#Extraterritoriality

Re:He will never get the domain name back

[thegarbz]

What could he do

Sue the registra for handing over the domain without due process and without following the dispute resolution setout in ICANN's rules.

Re:He will never get the domain name back

[dcw3]

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

It's not simple, but can be done...

http://harvardpolitics.com/wor...

Re:He will never get the domain name back

[Anonymous Coward]

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

A subtle point with many layers and sides to ponder.

Misleading headline

[Anonymous Coward]

Man Sues Nation For Allegedly Seizing France.com, a Domain He Has Owned For Over 20 Years
France didn't allegedly seize the domain, it seized the domain.

Lessons here

[Wolfrider]

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.

Re:Lessons here

[BlueUnderwear]

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!

Re:Lessons here

[Anonymous Coward]

Summary of your post:

It's this individual's own fault, and neither law nor established process can stand in the way of a government.

What are your political leanings again?

Why not buy it from him?

[Anonymous Coward]

Offer a million USD, a drop in the bucket for a nation, and everybody would be happy.

Hell, even "just" 250k USD might have been enough, as long as it's more than he expect to earn from the domain until he retures.

Re:further proving your insanity

[Anonymous Coward]

domain names are taken from their "owners" in EVERY country, ALL the TIME

Yes, for committing crimes, typically counterfeiting, gambling, or child porn.
This case is really unique: A foreign government that has nothing to do with this law-abiding guy got a chickenshit registrar to give them his domain.

Two things...

[viperidaenz]

1) Since when did French trademark law have jurisdiction over American domain names?
2) Doesn't trademark law require you actively defend your own trademarks? 24 years of doing nothing about france.com is not very active.

Re:Two things...

[moronoxyd]

1) Since when did French trademark law have jurisdiction over American domain names?
2) Doesn't trademark law require you actively defend your own trademarks? 24 years of doing nothing about france.com is not very active.

It seems that France didn't have a trademark for "France", so they had no reason to defend anything.
But once France.com applied for this trademark, the country of France had to object to this trademark. The idea that some company controls the trademark "France" and can decide who can use "France" in a commercial setting is just ridiculous.

Re:Two things...

[drew_kime]

It seems that France didn't have a trademark for "France", so they had no reason to defend anything. But once France.com applied for this trademark, the country of France had to object to this trademark.

I don't see that in any of the recent coverage. Have you got a link?

Re:Two things...

[Anonymous Coward]

https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/04/30/france_dot_com_domain_name_brouhaha/
https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=fr&u=https://www.legalis.net/jurisprudences/cour-dappel-de-paris-pole-5-ch-2-arret-du-22-septembre-2017/&prev=search

Re:Two things...

[drew_kime]

France.com's operators noticed a Dutch firm, Traveland Resorts, had filed a trademark application for france.com. Frydman then sued to stop that happening and in 2014 the trademarks were transferred by what appeared to be mutual agreement to France.com Inc.

So Frydman and France had an ongoing relationship. A Dutch firm tried to steal his business name, he sued and won. And as a result of that, France decided that if anyone is going to own the name it should be them. He won his lawsuit and still got screwed. I wonder what Traveland thought was the endgame here.

Frogs.com

[PPH]

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

Things like these will eventually end DNS

[Anonymous Coward]

The internet needs a level of indirection above IP addresses, but DNS confounds this technical requirement with all sorts of vanity issues. When these issues become too much of a problem, a different solution will emerge. The days of DNS are numbered.

Re: How is this even possible

[Anonymous Coward]

It should have never had control over any TLD other than .us to begin with.

Re: Further proving that the French

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't see how this proves anything.

Re: How is this even possible

[Anonymous Coward]

It had control of those because the US invented the fucking internet and DNS. Any other country is welcome to create their own DNS system and come up with whatever TLDs they would like to use

Re:Trademark?

[moronoxyd]

France can trademark its own name?!

Can you please explain why they shouldn't be able to trademark the name that they have been using for hundreds of years commercially?
And why some US company should be able to trademark it, even though France has been using "France" commercially for hundreds of years longer than that company has?

Geographic Indication ?

[DrYak]

Or it might actually be a case of "Geographic Indication" ?

The European continent has a complex system of laws defining which names of places can be used by commercial entities.
France is about the oldest country with such law systems (the AOC - Appellation d'origine controlée).
You can't arbitrarily call you wine "Champagne" if it's not actually produced in the Fench region of Champagne.
(Which by it self gave rise to tons of other problems as, e.g.: there's a region of Switzerland which also happens to be called Champagne and happens to produce (completely different, non-sparkling) wines as well).
See it as a sort of "trademark" law, but for geographic names, instead of brand names.

I haven't bothered to check the french court ruling, but I wouldn't be surprise if it was done in that sense (that there are precise "GI" criteria defining whether a comp can use "France" in their name).

Of course, then the simplest course of actions for Frydman would be to re-register a "France" domain at a registrar in some country that doesn't follow any treaty regarding GI. (China ?)

Re:Geographic Indication ?

[Jadecristal]

More details (since I immediately thought of PDO) at Wikipedia on designated origin, etc. in the EU:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Merit in the case ? (GIs)

[DrYak]

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 that serves as a gathering place for the brand's fans, some random schmuck couldn't use specific Geographic Indications in their webdomain (exactly as they couldn't use that GI in their business name) if they don't follow the requirement for said GI (usually : growing and processing your product in the region named in the GI).

canada.ca / .com

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

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

Yaz

True, but the Government of Canada does own "canada.ca"; "canada.com" is owned by a newspaper. Also, as a comparison, the city owns "toronto.ca" but a newspaper (again) owns "toronto.com".

That's one interesting thing about the .ca ccTLD: Canadian 'residency' requirements are enforced. A random person on the planets generally can't get a domain unless they are a citizen, legal resident, or a federally / provincially registered corporate entity.

If the French Ministry of Tourism needs a 'brochure domain', perhaps they should have gone with "france.fr".

registrar

[Anonymous Coward]

The registrar handed the domain over. They could have said "no, we're not a French company and it's not a French TLD, kick rocks" but they didn't. The actual hand-over probably has nothing to do with French law.

The (now-former) owner should have gone with someone like EasyDNS.

It's run by a libertarian (Mark Jeftovic) who has a hard-on for individual rights and has told governments and police to go fuck themselves when they've shown up without a warrant:

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EasyDNS

And by libertarian, I mean that literally. He's run in elections as the Libertarian candidate:

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parkdale—High_Park#Election_results

Domain theft no less

[xenobyte]

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.

We shall litigate on-and-on to the end.

[Latent Heat]

We shall sue them in France, we shall litigate on the seas and oceans, we shall litigate with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our domain name, whatever the cost may be. We shall litigate on the beaches, we shall litigate on the landing grounds, we shall litigate in the fields and in the streets, we shall litigate in the hills; we shall never surrender,

Re:We shall litigate on-and-on to the end.

[datavirtue]

[gets defeated a few days later]

So then make a limited government ?

[gDLL]

so that it's not that appealing to bad men ?

From the country that hosted whitehouse.com

[Anonymous Coward]

Suck it France.

"France" is an English word

[Anonymous Coward]

Why would they care about this? I thought the French were extremely protective of their own language. The US government probably wouldn't care if a French citizen had Etats-Unis-d'Amerique.com

Re:"France" is an English word

[Kid CUDA]

Nice try

allegedly is getting old

[Anonymous Coward]

Allegedly Seizing? Really? Can't we agree as an opening statement of fact that France did actually seize france.com? This isn't an "alleged" criminal who might be innocent. The domain confiscation is pretty well established.

Re:Trademark?

[Anonymous Coward]

Because governments should not hold trademarks or any other so-call "intellectual property."

Surrendered?

[Bodhammer]

So france.com surrendered? Shocked, I tell you, Shocked.

Check out the other .com web pages

[Anonymous Coward]

The other country .com web sites I checked were mostly privately/commercially hosted. Germany.com has a squatter that isn't selling, and many of the others are travel themed sites. Check out greece.com that states it does have a trademark on greece.com.

"Greece.com is a private, commercial website. Greece.comTM & Greece.com Recommended HotelTM are trademarks of Greece.com.
© Copyright 2018 Greece.com. All Rights Reserved. Photos are © their respective owners."

WTF?!?!?! Get yer own France.gov

[martinfb]

France needs to give it back.
Frydman owns it fair and square.

Am I missing something here?

re-direct

[Anonymous Coward]

The best part is you are directed to france.FR... they didn't even need france.com.

What about

[jennatalia]

France.surrenders?

Time for Brazil to take Amazon.com

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm certain they'd make a new deal with the USPS that's more favorable to the US government. :)

Nissan

[stepho-wrs]

Sounds similar to how Nissan Motors tried to force (unsuccessfully) Mr Uzi Nissan to give up his nissan.com domain name.
See nissan.com for his story.

Let's call it Franse then?

[Anonymous Coward]

So we can distinguish between naming the silly country and using the trademark?!