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legal France seizes France.com from man who’s had it since ‘94, so he sues

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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.

In the mid-1990s, Jean-Noël 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)
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 Ars.
Sources:
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy...com-from-man-whos-had-it-since-94-so-he-sues/
I also seen this on 1st page of Reddit:
https://www.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/8frmzc/france_seizes_francecom_from_man_whos_had_it/

EDIT: I see people wondering who's crazy to use web.com/NetworkSolutions, this should answer your question: :)
https://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/networksolutions.com#trafficstats
 
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The views expressed on this page by users and staff are their own, not those of NamePros.
My dog name is France. I am afraid if french foreign minister seize my dog.
 
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What does @jberryhill think of this?

I've been fairly busy lately.

The circumstances around this, as I understand them, are a little more complicated than are generally appreciated. On the question of "How does a French court get jurisdiction over a US registrant?" the answer is pretty simple - "If the US registrant agrees to it." What happened here initially is that a private company in France, which also claimed certain rights, sued the US registrant in France.

When you are in the US and you are sued in a foreign country, and that foreign country is in the relevant treaty system for international enforcement of judgments, you initially have two choices. One is that you can let the foreign proceeding go, not appear in that proceeding, and then challenge US enforcement of the judgment if, for example, the exercise of jurisdiction over you in that foreign proceeding would not satisfy US standards. The other choice would be to go ahead and show up in that foreign proceeding and participate in the case there.

The thing is, if you take that second route, then when US enforcement of that judgment against you is sought, you can't argue that the foreign court didn't have jurisdiction over you. By showing up in the foreign proceeding on the substance of the case, you admitted to the jurisdiction of that court.

So that first decision needs to be made on the basis of whether you believe it would be more efficient to mount a collateral challenge against a default judgment in the US, whether your activities underlying the suit would satisfy a US court's standard of whether the foreign jurisdiction was appropriate, and a few other things.

So, where are we? Oh, okay... the private company in France filed a lawsuit in France against the US registrant in relation to the domain name. The US registrant decided to go ahead and participate in that lawsuit. But, the unexpected twist was that the French government later joined the lawsuit as a party and essentially argued "neither of those two parties are entitled to the domain name, we are." In France, as in many European countries, the relevant laws on geographic names are unlike those in the US. So, on the substance of the claim by the French government, the court decided in the government's favor.

Coming back to the question of "How did a French court get jurisdiction over this?" the simple answer is that the registrant subjected himself to the jurisdiction of the court. That's the simple answer. The more complicated answer is... more complicated.

HOWEVER, none of that has anything to do with the propriety of Web.com's decision to act on notice of a French court decision directing transfer of the domain name. I am not directly familiar with the specific form of the order, but while the court could have directed, say, the registrant to transfer the domain name (or risk whatever penalties or further expenses that may accrue from not doing so, or mounting a collateral challenge), that would be up to the registrant to comply, not comply, or challenge. Web.com was not before the court, and it is not my understanding that Web.com was ordered to transfer the domain name by the court. The domain name registration contract, by its own terms, states that it is a contract with a situs in Florida. Whether the French court had jurisdiction over the domain name itself (as opposed to the registrant) is an entirely different kettle of fish.
 
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Not nice to hear. Surprised that web.com would simply transfer the domain to another account without authorization of the existing account holder. Also I am very surprised that a country like France does not pay up but gets involved in such dirty tactics and ultimately theft.
Just another proof why people should NEVER use Web.com/NetworkSolutions.
 
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This is why I have zero domains at netsol...
 
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The Germany.com guy doesn't use Web.com so the Cat pic stays lol
 
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Finally there is movement in this case.

Arguments were heard on Friday (May 31st) in federal court right here in Northern Virginia.

Jean-Noel Frydman's lawyers stated the obvious: How can France argue it has an inherent trademark to the word "France," when in 2009, it agreed to surrender any such claims in communications with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.

Furthermore, exact-match geographic terms have never qualified for trademarks. According to U.S. federal law, 15 U.S.C. §1210.02, a trademark application can be refused when the proposed mark is primarily geographic:

"The significance of a mark is primarily geographic if it identifies a real and significant geographic location and the primary meaning of the mark is the geographic meaning. A geographic location may be any term identifying a country, city, state, continent, locality, region, area, or street."
 
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Without WIPO decision it's not legit transfer of France.com, this domain was well developed and not used in bad faith, France tourism bureau have no chances to own it even in case of WIPO case. Owner of France.com must sue both France tourism bureau and Netsol and ask for compensation along with domain.
 
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...Now every country is going to do the same and any domainer holding a country name in .com is at risk.

This is a real serious event - for the present and the future. "Every country will do the same" you say? Ha! Think higher! In my opinion, I think it's going to mean that domainers that hold ANY country, city, town, village, or municipality name will be at risk losing it and may be required to just give them up to whatever political entity is in charge. Sounds very socialistic, Communistic in nature.

The thought that French authorities just "scooped" this name with no recourse to the owner's rights is very, very scary and discerning. It's hard to believe there is not more to this story. I sure hope so
 
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Without WIPO decision it's not legit transfer of France.com
Really ?
Domain names can be seized and reassigned through court orders, which is what happened here. Court orders take precedence over and actually can override UDRPs.

What is strange here is that a US registrar would recognize the French jurisdiction.

And once again, netsol did not even bother to formally notify all the parties of their actions. Using a more trustworthy registrar could have yielded a different outcome.
 
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When you hear of stupid cases like this I wonder whether domainers should get together and set up a organisation which protects legitimate domainers against such moves. That way companies like Netsol and countries like France think twice before doing something so stupid such as stealing someone's assets and possibly their livelihood.
 
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Not nice to hear. Surprised that web.com would simply transfer the domain to another account without authorization of the existing account holder. Also I am very surprised that a country like France does not pay up but gets involved in such dirty tactics and ultimately theft.
 
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Horrible precedence being set right there :(
 
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This story has hit the BBC:
http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-43949289
And the (former) owner of France.com has put up a site explaining his side of the story detailing many cases of collaboration between himself/France.com and the French Tourist Office!!
http://gauliath.wpengine.com/

It is appalling that this theft was allowed to happen. Obviously we cannot do much about what the French (or any other nation's) courts decide, but shouldn't there be some level of protection from the registrar for a domain owner who lives in the USA?!!! At this point it seems that Web.com are seriously at fault by folding at the first sign of a legal threat, and it may be the case that the transfer cannot be reversed. As others have said, an easy takeaway for any domain owner is to not use Web.com, but that leaves the question which registrar can be trusted not to behave in the same way when faced with a similar situation. Godaddy has been known to take down websites due to unfounded complaints, so I don't think they would be my first choice.
It would be nice to have reps from other registrars chime in on this so we know their position.

What if the government of France decides it would like to own newyork.com, should it be handed to them?
Seems to me they would have the same legal rights to that name as to France.com, ie none....
 
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It has no URS or UDRP filed that I could find, nor court proceeding other than what was issued in France, that’s a big issue for domain owners.
Nothing on WIPO that I could find.

The registrants company name was France.com, Inc. imo, not too smart. Not sure if that will be an legal argument, or general public cares or would argued as to “be confusingly similar” to the country name trademark.

I looked at a screenshot in 2005, just a normal tourism website. Quite an archive.org collection available.

Here is the registrants lawsuit:
https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/4446066-1-Complaint.html#document/p4/a420695

Here is the “hit list” for the next ones to be grabbed. Just kidding, but shows who owns what country.com

http://www.wipo.int/export/sites/www/amc/es/docs/annex12.pdf
 
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NetworkSolutions = Thieves / Scumbags
Transfer out ALL your domains, they can be gone any day...
 
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Not nice to hear. Surprised that web.com would simply transfer the domain to another account without authorization of the existing account holder. Also I am very surprised that a country like France does not pay up but gets involved in such dirty tactics and ultimately theft.

That's their preferred modus operandi.
 
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Never ever use networksolutions.com as a registrar.
 
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Why a country like france use a dirty way to get the domain while they can simply make a reasonable offer & get it legally!
 
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Does a Paris Court have jurisdiction over the U.S.- based asset of a U.S resident? What is going on here?
 
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Are we going to have to start calling them ‘Freedom Fries’ again?
 
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Move on ? But he was running an active website, it was a developed business, not just some guy sitting on a valuable domain.
 
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