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By
now many of you have
heard the news
that the extremely
valuable France.com domain
name that Jean-Noel Frydman
has owned and operated a business on
since 1994 had been removed
from his Web.com account without
notice and turned over to the French
government. For years Frydman,
who was born in France but lives in
the U.S. and holds dual U.S.-French
citizenship, operated a thriving
business promoting French travel on
the domain with France's blessing.
That
changed in 2015 when France decided
they wanted the domain for
themselves but apparently didn't
want to pay anything for it, so they
started a legal battle to try to get
it from
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Image
from Bigstock
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Frydman.
This, even though there are multiple
legal precedents (PuertoRico.com,
Barcelona.com and MyrtleBeach.com
to name just a few) establishing
that anyone can own domain names
that match countries, states, cities
and other geographic locations - they
are places, not trademarks.
In
September 2017 a French court
ruled in favor of the French
government (no surprise there) and
armed with that order the government
asked Web.com to transfer the
name to them which, even though Frydman's business, Web.com and
the operator of .com domains (Verisign)
are all based in the United
States, not France. Nothing
happened until March 12, 2018 when
Web.com is alleged to have taken
France.com from Frydman's account,
putting him out of business
overnight, and transferred it to the
French Ministry of Foreign
Affairs.
As
you would expect, Frydman
has sued
the French government
in Virginia
(where Verisign is located
making it the proper venue
for disputes over .com
domains to be filed). This
will be a very expensive
fight for Frydman that,
as anyone with experience in
the legal system knows, will
likely drag on for a very
long time. Still many major
owners of geographic domains
are rallying around
Frydman offering to help
financially and by any other
legal means necessary to
right this wrong. The
blatant unfairness of this
situation has caught the
attention of media outlets
around the world - and
not just in the domain and
business worlds - the New
York Times
joined the chorus today.
As
more people become aware of
what happened, the blowback
should continue to grow
exponentially. I am not an attorney
but I know many of the
world's best in our field
who have won cases
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Jean-Noel
Frydman |
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like
this involving geodomains.
Based on the decisions I've
seen in U.S. courts and UDRP
filings, it is a case I
would expect Frydman to win
but anything can happen and
it is apt to be a long,
frustrating battle. It is a
fight all domain
registrants need to stay
apprised of because of the
serious ramifications for us
all - if it can happen to
Frydman it can happen to any
of us. |
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