EU-Funded DNS Provider Must Block Pirate Sites, French Court Rules

Since 2024, the Paris Judicial Court has gradually expanded France’s piracy site blocking orders beyond residential Internet providers.

First, it required Cloudflare, Google, and Cisco to actively block access to pirate sites through their own DNS resolvers, confirming that third-party intermediaries can be required to take responsibility. Not much later, VPN providers were added to the blocking roster, as well as search engines.

These intermediaries were targeted because they could help pirates to bypass other blocking measures. If these alternative routes are cut off as well, the overall effectiveness of the anti-piracy injunction would improve.

This broader blocking push was further strengthened in March when the Paris court issued a series of blocking measures all at once. By ordering ISPs, DNS resolvers, and VPN providers to block pirate sites all at once, it should be even more effective.

These bundled orders appear to be the new standard. On April 17, the Paris court issued a series of 18 orders, with half protecting pirate Formula 1 streams and the other half targeting MotoGP infringers.

The series of 18 separate court orders, which we conveniently list in a table below, were all handed down on the same day. They include a wide variety of intermediaries, including a notable new name: DNS4EU.

DNS4EU Must Block Pirate Sites

DNS4EU is a public DNS resolver service that was initially co-funded by the European Commission and operated by a consortium led by Czech cybersecurity company Whalebone. The service, which officially launched last June, is presented as a sovereign European alternative to non-EU resolvers such as Google Public DNS and Cloudflare.

“The goal of DNS4EU is to ensure the digital sovereignty of the EU by providing a private, safe, and independent European DNS resolver,” the project’s website states.

On April 17, the Paris court issued two rulings against DNS4EU/Whalebone, requiring the DNS resolver to block 16 pirate streaming domains linked to pirated MotoGP streams and 21 domains linked to Formula 1 streams.

“Order Whalebone to implement, within the framework of its domain name resolution system called ‘Dns4eu,’ all blocking measures to prevent access from French territory, including all overseas territories of France, by any effective means to the identified internet sites and IPTV services accessible from [these domain names],” the translated order reads.

These orders were requested by French broadcaster Canal+, which holds the rights to these broadcasts, and the orders remain valid until the end of the season.

The list of targeted domains includes pirate IPTV and streaming sites such as antenawest.store, daddylive3.com, rereyano.ru, iptvsupra.com, king365tv.me, sportzonline.live, and smartbox-tv.com, with many of the same domains appearing in both orders.

Targeted domains

Default Judgment

The rulings against Whalebone are default judgments. The company did not appear at the February 19 hearing and filed no defense. As a result, the Paris court ruled in Canal+’s favor without any opposing arguments.

DNS4EU is not the only DNS provider to forfeit a defense in the French proceedings. Quad9, a Swiss-based non-profit foundation that operates a privacy-focused public DNS resolver, also defaulted in a parallel ruling handed down the same day.

Other intermediaries did put up a fight. Google, NordVPN, Surfshark, ProtonVPN, and Cloudflare (referred to in the published ruling under the pseudonym) all contested the blocking requests, without result.

Other intermediaries did put up a fight. Google, NordVPN, Surfshark, ProtonVPN, and Cloudflare all contested the blocking requests, without result. Cloudflare appears in the published rulings under pseudonyms, possibly due to French anonymization rules.

The Paris court rejected claims that VPNs and DNS resolvers fall outside the scope of Article L. 333-10 of the French Sports Code, which permits dynamic site blocking against “any person likely to contribute” to remedying infringement.

The court also rejected the defendants’ technical arguments about cost, encryption, and general monitoring obligations, citing the lack of “quantified and verifiable” evidence.

Google and Cloudflare previously objected to similar rulings, but their opposition was also rejected on appeal. The companies’ request to refer the case to the EU’s highest court has also been rejected.

DNS4EU has not explained why it chose not to defend itself. The organization did not respond to a request for comment, and parent company Whalebone did not return our request for clarification either.

Global Blocking Fallout

While we do not know for sure what DNS4EU’s official position is, TorrentFreak’s tests of the DNS4EU public resolvers from outside France showed that, as of this writing, several targeted domains show SSL errors.

This includes Rightflourish.net, which shows the following error message, also to users outside of France

SSL error on rightflourish.net

Visitors who proceed to ignore the SSL warning and continue to the blocked domain will eventually see a blocking notification, confirming that DNS4EU is complying with the French court order. The blocking message was added this week.

Confirmation

The block also appears to extend beyond France, applying to users in other EU member states. Technically, that could be considered overblocking. However, without a response from the project, it remains unclear whether this cross-border application is intentional or an oversight.

We will update this article accordingly when DNS4EU responds.

Update April 30:: DNS4EU’s parent company Whalebone confirms that it is indeed blocking the listed domain names, as requested by the French court order. These blocking measures apply globally, which is broader than what the court order requires. All blocking measures are disclosed through the notification we have spotted in this article.

Finally, the company stresses that it currently no longer receives EU-funding. The official website still mentions the EU co-funding, however.

The full response we received is as follows:

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1. Implementation of Blocking Measures: Whalebone confirms that the blocking measures mandated by the French judicial authorities have been implemented. As a provider of recursive public DNS resolver, Whalebone respects the rule of law and complies with binding judicial orders issued within the European Union._

2. Application Across DNS4EU Resolver Tiers: Our approach to these requirements is governed by two core principles: transparency and regional relevance.

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Global Application: For the DNS4EU Public Service, we do not restrict these filtering measures to French traffic only. These blocks apply globally across our resolver tiers.

Transparency: We believe that user trust is built on clarity. In line with our commitment to the DNS4EU mission, Whalebone transparently communicates all domains that are blocked due to regulatory or judicial requirements. This allows our users to understand exactly which content is being restricted and why.

3. Project Funding and Sustainability We would also like to clarify the financial structure of the DNS4EU project:

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2023–2025: The initial phase and development of the project were co-funded by the European Union.
**
Present Day:** Since the conclusion of the EU-funded period in 2025, all operational, maintenance, and development costs for the DNS4EU infrastructure are now fully covered by Whalebone.

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An overview of all orders handed down by the Paris Court on April 17, protecting the Formula 1 and MotoGP broadcasts, is available in the table below.

Case Number (RG)	Defendants	Sport Competition	Category	Measure
26/00502	Major French ISPs (Orange, SFR, Free, Bouygues, etc.)	MotoGP	Internet Service Providers	Domain Blocking
26/00503	Google, Microsoft (Bing)	MotoGP	Search Engines	De-indexing
26/00504	Google LLC & Google Ireland (Public DNS)	MotoGP	DNS Resolver	DNS-level Blocking
26/00505	Quad9 Foundation	MotoGP	DNS Resolver	DNS-level Blocking
26/00506	Whalebone	MotoGP	DNS Resolver	DNS-level Blocking
26/00507	[O] INC (Cloudflare)	MotoGP	DNS / CDN / Reverse Proxy	Blocking
26/00508	NordVPN, Surfshark	MotoGP	VPN Providers	Domain Blocking
26/00509	Cyberghost, ExpressVPN	MotoGP	VPN Providers	Domain Blocking
26/00510	Proton AG	MotoGP	VPN Provider	Domain Blocking
26/00511	Major French ISPs (Orange, SFR, Free, Bouygues, etc.)	Formula 1	Internet Service Providers	Domain Blocking
26/00512	Google, Microsoft (Bing)	Formula 1	Search Engines	De-indexing
26/00514	Google LLC & Google Ireland (Public DNS)	Formula 1	DNS Resolver	DNS-level Blocking
26/00515	Quad9 Foundation	Formula 1	DNS Resolver	DNS-level Blocking
26/00516	Whalebone	Formula 1	DNS Resolver	DNS-level Blocking
26/00517	[L] INC	Formula 1	DNS, CDN, & Reverse Proxy	Blocking
26/00519	Cyberghost, ExpressVPN	Formula 1	VPN Providers	Domain Blocking
26/00520	Proton AG	Formula 1	VPN Provider	Domain Blocking
26/00681	NordVPN, Surfshark	Formula 1	VPN Providers	Domain Blocking