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

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), 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.

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/...94-so-he-sues/

So finally the French changed French trademark law so they could get the domain back. Scary

That is a fucking robbery. Web.com is to blame too. They had no right to transfer that domain, .com is not .fr, and where is the ICANN dispute?

yeah shitty situation, thay domain is worth a lot just by itself.

Fuck up.

As if France couldn't afford to just pay him.
What did they spent in legal fees and time wasted?

It's an ego thing. They'd spend more trying to take it from him rather than pay him.

This is disgusting.

Yes, I forgot about the part where they have to prove they are right at all cost.
I disagree that the name of a nation should even be trademarked.

What about a town named France; do they have to turn over the town?

:1orglaugh

I do agree that France could take the domain if the website were fraudulently representing the nation of France.

Paris Hilton must be shaking in her boots now.

really wrong of them...

Spain.com isn´t owned by government, but seems to be about travel with Spain.
America.com is parked
Strangely, GreatBritain.com shows London & sights around London... personally, those Scots, Welsh & Irish should be pretty pissed, I know I would be :2 cents:

France trademarked their name? If so, does the trademark specifically mention “domain names”. What if your last name is France? (When I trademarked my magazine name, I included language so they could register the name but ONLY if it had nothing to do with about eight different subjects)

For twenty years it was okay? And the host never told him it was relinquishing the domain?

Lawsuit if the trademark has specific wording. They can’t claim defamation as it wasn’t a French-bashing site. I hope this goes the legal route so we can see the specifics from each side

You don't know the french:

https://www.historycrunch.com/upload...39/29_orig.jpg

Scary? You must be kidding. That's cool IMHO :thumbsup

That is seriously fucked up. I can’t believe this didn’t even go through a dispute with ICANN.

Brad

Indeed , BULLSHIT !!!

Why should the Irish be pissed off?

next time, he should register the domain in some country where registrar is not operated by pussies. North Korea sounds good but then again, they are not using the internet :)

All I know is that I won't buy any service from web.com Maybe we should sue web.com to stop using that domain. I mean world wide web belongs to all of us , right?

Talk about a bad morning. Domain likely worth 3-5 mil

Why are you so surprised, they took 2/3 of our country a few years ago :disgust

ICANN does not give a shit and neither does the registrars.

my bad, should have wrote unitedkingdom.com

Strange, many companies use United Kingdom and some Great Britain, forgetting the only difference is Northern Ireland inc.

When we post from Spain to our family, I always write England, UK. However, I suppose it should be England, UK, GB.

That's a fair value without any development, but there is significant value from being a developed site 20+ years.

This act sets bad precedent for other domain disputes, if it's not overturned. Whoever owns any domain containing "France" should be concerned about seizure by the French government.