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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.
NetworkSolutions = Thieves / Scumbags
Transfer out ALL your domains, they can be gone any day...
 
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Is it the trend setter? but very dirty
never to be seen as good. yet another bad example set by NS now along with France...

I hope if the transaction can be reversed.
 
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Visited france.com and found they are using .com to attract people from all over the world to their .fr domain. They know it very well without international platform and .com is one of them it is not possible to connect people from all over the world and hence they are using this domain for .fr traffic increase.
 
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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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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.
You are right,
I can smell something under the cover from NS
 
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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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What is strange here is that a US registrar would recognize the French jurisdiction..

That is exactly the issue here, as some banana republic in the middle of the Pacific being run by a mad dictator could issue all sorts of legal decisions and mandates, but that doesn't mean the US has to follow them.

This is very disheartening that an obviously biased and self-serving French court decision on France.com was just automatically enforced. Crazy.
 
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The guy who lost the domain has a live US trademark on it - just search france.com at http://tmsearch.uspto.gov

How can Netsol be the one to decide that a foreign trademark trumps an established domestic one?

Word Mark FRANCE.COM
Goods and Services
IC 035. US 100 101 102. G & S: Advertising services, namely, promoting and marketing the goods and services of others in the field of travel, shopping, business, entertainment, home decor, fashion, wines, food and education, all related to France. FIRST USE: 19950618. FIRST USE IN COMMERCE: 19950618
IC 039. US 100 105. G & S: Providing an on-line searchable computer database featuring information on travel; Provision of travel information; Travel and transport information service. FIRST USE: 19950618. FIRST USE IN COMMERCE: 19950618

IC 041. US 100 101 107. G & S: On-line journals, namely, blogs featuring articles in the field of travel, shopping, business, entertainment, home decor, food, wine education, cultural activities and news, all related to France. FIRST USE: 19950618. FIRST USE IN COMMERCE: 19950618
 
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The guy who lost the domain has a live US trademark on it - just search france.com at http://tmsearch.uspto.gov

How can Netsol be the one to decide that a foreign trademark trumps an established domestic one?
Every experienced pros here already expressed their concerns about web.com as far as I remember, experienced members voiced their concern about NS every time whenever they discovered a domain registered with NS.
 
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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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I think it's time to tweet this to Donald Trump's account.
 
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What is strange here is that a US registrar would recognize the French jurisdiction.

Don’t want to derail this off topic, but that’s what I mentioned to you about GDRP before, remember? You answered and mentioned privacy is a basic right and I agree with you. However, why in a few weeks should EU privacy laws must be complied with worldwide? Its jurisdiction is EU. Sure Whois is published worldwide, I get it for EU registrants, but I have been reading about GDRP compliant websites are required. So is this a new trend? Why would the EU now have some jurisdiction to fine non EU private websites worldwide? This France.com jurisdiction in the U.S. seems NetSol must have offices or are registered in France to do business.
 
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OK so if the sale was not legal how come the domain was vended?

Shouldn't the originator of the name be on the hook and not the savvy dpmainer who made the buy?

And 1994 was a while back. When did these princesses wake up and Smell the coffee?
 
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However, why in a few weeks should EU privacy laws must be complied with worldwide? Its jurisdiction is EU.
I very much doubt that GDPR aims at worldwide enforcement.
However it will probably have to be enforced in a differential way - ie location-based.

This is nothing new really. I will give you an example: Google will return different results based on the country you're in. For example if you use google.de/.fr some content deemed 'extremist' will be unavailable to you. And the other companies of the same kind (eg Apple/Yahoo/FB) also act as willing censors for the Chinese regime, in order to be allowed to do business there.
The Internet is already tailored on a country basis and this has been a reality for a long time.

The EU right to be forgotten is also another piece of legislation that is not new but has raised similar issues.

Usually, it is the US always that enforces its law upon the rest of the world, and we have to go along.
By the way, ever heard about the recently-passed Cloud Act ?
So I am not unhappy that for a Change it is Europeans who are giving Uncle Sam some headache.
 
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I very much doubt that GDPR aims at worldwide enforcement.

Some of the developers blogs I subscribe to have been mentioning it as though it’s required regardless of location. Wordpress is due to make changes also. Stats logging IP address plugins stated updates, maybe everyone is running scared. On one site, I deleted a pop up plugin for a mail list (I never bothered with using) since it collected only subscriber email addresses into a database that could be potentially hacked. Overreaction on my part? Maybe. Unless a website collects complete user data information, I think its crazy. I am concerned how this is going to be enforced.

I am aware of the US crazy overreach outside its borders. I don’t agree with that either. The US imposes its laws on me too, and don’t live there amymore. The OECD or UN gathers international interests together to enforce various agendas. It seems to me with domains this is ICANN or WIPO jursidiction, not a local court in France.

The Amazon or search engine censoring I understand, those companies serve the entire world and local offices. The local offices should maintain censorship locally since local language skills and law compliance is needed. But as a small business website, it seems to me a disclaimer on the front page should do. “Enter at your own risk” basically. There are country based blocking plugins that if I were truly worried I would prevent certain countries from even resolving to a website I control.

The cloud act, I heard the name thats it, nothing more. Ok so here is the article, does not mention EU citizens data sharing or compliance. This applies only to data on US Citizens, right? Do you have an article I could read? I am interested in how this applies to you being in the EU, other than preventing your info from being used in the US. Question is how does it effect dual citizens? Lol.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/CLOUD_Act

Logically, Microsoft should comply regardless where the data is stored imo, it was a criminal investigation. They are a US based company doing business worldwide. Legally though, they fought it.

Back to the France.com grab, a Venue change to NetSol VA location seems logical, however this is moving into international law being applied. I thought that WIPO was supposed to be the venue.
 
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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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Hints at an unusual relationship between some high level people at NS and the French government.

Looks like web.com turned the name over willingly, in which case how were they motivated to do so?
 
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Hints at an unusual relationship between some high level people at NS and the French government.

Looks like web.com turned the name over willingly, in which case how were they motivated to do so?

Yes isn't there a kind of reverse escrow period where the domainer owner can make their case?
 
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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.
This situation still puts the burden on the domain owner. Notbto mention the bad press and interruption of use...
 
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Even Florida paid something like $180k for VisitFlorida.

What a bunch of asses. Anonymous needs to know about this so the DDoS attacks begin on ALL of their websites.
 
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France government = :poop: , hope that the real owner get his name back soon!
 
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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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That's it, I'm throwing out all of my Grey Goose bottles... once they're empty!
 
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