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

[Constantin S]

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

 

[offthehandle]

Spent 30 minutes searching and cannot find anything in the latest news on google for free reading. The docket was posted earlier in the thread, going to read it.

 

[Dodoma_com]

You are correct. There is a legal news site and you can only read the first paragraph for free. But that is my source for my above update.

Do a Google news search for ' "France.com" ' and ' "Domain" ' where you use the inner quotation marks. (You need to put quotation marks around "France.com" for Google to use that whole phrase.)

 

[offthehandle]

https://www.namepros.com/threads/fr...nce-94-so-he-sues.1078710/page-5#post-7185925

You are correct. There is a legal news site and you can only read the first paragraph for free. But that is my source for my above update.

Do a Google news search for ' "France.com" ' and ' "Domain" ' where you use the inner quotation marks. (You need to put quotation marks around "France.com" for Google to use that whole phrase.)

Thanks. Yes, I did that and found the law360 link, but then rereviewed this thread post above and after looking at John Berryhills docket link above, tried to read more motions, but requires a subscription which I don’t have. Also, the docket link isnt fully up to date to May 31st date.

Good news story maybe for @equity78 ?

 

[namemarket]

This case is devastating to the value of basically all GEO domains which are at very high risk of loss. IMO, most geo domains are now worth a fraction of what they were valued at several years ago. In fact, successfully selling a geo name for a good price should prove extremely difficult as word on this court case spreads.

It could easily happen to other GEO name where any nation, province, state, county or city who wants a name simply goes to a local court. They can also use the FRANCE.COM case as setting a legal precedent to get a favorable local court judgement.

 

[DomainRecap]

It could easily happen to other GEO name where any nation, province, state, county or city who wants a name simply goes to a local court.

This case is a real joke, but it certainly will give other countries ideas when it comes to repossessing their country's .COM name.

By using a French government court, the French government miraculously won the court case there , and however idiotic, biased, predetermined, and self-directed the decision was, it still creates a kind of "look at what happened to France.com" precedent for any other jerk countries who want to pull off the same scam.

Personally, I would not put any significant money into country GEO-domains, as all it takes is a crazy leader being elected, some fraudulent/homer local court decisions, and suddenly your investment is gone.

 

[namemarket]

...Personally, I would not put any significant money into country GEO-domains, as all it takes is a crazy leader being elected, some fraudulent/homer local court decisions, and suddenly your investment is gone.

The expected massive decline in value of GEO domains is made even worse in that it does not require a "crazy leader" the President of France is far from being crazy and appears to me to be the complete opposite.

I would not be surprised if the President was not involved in the matter and the French Tourism board or a related gov agency may have been the instigator.

As a direct result of the France.com litigation I would expect a similar geo name which may have been valued somewhere in the 7-figures range in the past may be difficult to sell for more 5-figures now.

 

[Lord Antares]

The problem with this case is that the registrar immediately transferred the France.com domain over to France, after a clearly-biased French gov't-owned & operated French court decided to award France.com to France, without inquiring with the owner or holding it for a potential appeal.

Once it's over in France's possession, good luck ever getting it back. If it had never left, and the biased and fraudulent French court decision been appealed, the rightful owner would have had a good chance of keeping it.

I agree with this entirely. If web.com/netsol didn't transfer the domain out immediately, it would stay with the rightful owner. As if people needed more evidence that netsol is not to be trusted.

 

[jideofor]

The original owner should sue netsol. They basically transferred away a domain that did not belong to them.

The domain should have remained with the registrant until all legal avenues had been exhausted. That simply didn’t happen here which is why legal proceedings are still ongoing.

This was my exact thought. Network Solutions is not helping its customers and they hardly ever respond to any allegations/

 

[LarryDomain]

I wonder if Godaddy was in the position of Network Solution, what would they have done? Anyone from Godaddy to chime in?

 

[draco]

So this was France and a Trademark claim. I wonder what would happen if a country decided they didn't like the content on a website, sued in their court for violating their laws (surprise, we win), and then demanded the domain be turned over?

 

[likemike]

You sure gotta watch out for governments with stuff like this going on more than ever! In a word this SUCKS!

 

[ixex]

Just another proof why people should NEVER use Web.com/NetworkSolutions.

You got that right. They took my domain and sold it to another networksolutions account. I got it back.

 

[ixex]

Never ever use networksolutions.com as a registrar.

Had my name removed, by a glich.. I renewed for a year, then cancelled and renewed for 2 or 3 more... and this caused a system hicup ...they sold the domain to another NS account holder... got the domain back

 

[ixex]

What if the guy's, or anyone's name/surname, is France.. can this be pulled off?

 

[wwwulff]

Former France.com domain owner asks Supreme Court to consider case

https://domainnamewire.com/2021/09/...in-owner-asks-supreme-court-to-consider-case/

 

[cooljub]

The former registrant of France.com has failed to get back the domain via the UDRP process

 

[Name Trader]

The former registrant of France.com has failed to get back the domain via the UDRP process

Isn't that why they took it to the US Supreme Court?

 

[cooljub]

Isn't that why they took it to the US Supreme Court?

They declined the case. This UDRP was after.