
Legal row over who owns France.com domain - dustinmoris
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-43949289
======
soufron
... it's more simple than that. He had registered several trademarks under the
name France.com. The French gvt sued him to transfer these trademarks.

And they won thanks to trademark law that prevents registering trademarks when
people have prior rights on them - which the French gvt has on the name
France.

The judges also explained that he never tried to demonstrate that the French
gvt was aware of this use and that let us do it.

And finally, they explained that he was exactly the same thing as if someone
had registered a website using the name and the identity of someone else.

They end up explaining that there is a risk of confusion between his website,
and the official website of the French gvt.

Thus, web.com decided to transfer the website as the French gvt was the new
legal owner of these trademarks.

There is no bad faith in it. He used these trademarks for a while, but when
their legit owner decided to stop him, it did and that's it.

The two legal decisions provided on his website are quite clear.

~~~
a254613e
As far as I'm aware, French court does not have any jurisdiction over web.com
- therefore the transfer was unfounded.

~~~
soufron
As a matter of fact, they do. They can apply Trademark Law, and thus their
decision apply in the US - thanks to Trademark treatises.

Thus, once they had decided on an the registrar had really no option but to
oblige and transfer the website.

The registrar could have contested the decision and asked for its exequatur in
the US, but it would have been a waste of time, and he could have been subject
to penalties in France, but also in the US.

~~~
tripletao
That's not how American law works. An American registrar is under no
obligation to comply before American judicial review. Nothing in American law
would have subjected them to penalties if they'd told France to go get an
American court order, which they would happily comply with. France can of
course impose whatever penalties it wants (and collect them to the best of its
abilities). I'm pretty sure it works the same in the other direction, too.

Do judgments work like that within the EU? I'm wondering if the unusually
close relationship among EU countries gives EU citizens a misleading picture
of international law in general.

> Before a US court will enforce a judgment issued by a foreign court, the US
> court must first recognize the judgment. To “recognize” a foreign judgment
> means to make it equal to any other judgment issued by a US court. A foreign
> judgment recognized by a US court—a domesticated judgment—has the same
> authority as a judgment first issued in the United States. Foreign judgments
> cannot be enforced in the US before they are recognized.

[https://harrisbricken.com/blog/recognition-foreign-
judgments...](https://harrisbricken.com/blog/recognition-foreign-judgments-us-
courts/)

------
tripletao
I still don't understand why web.com obeyed a French court order, since its
parent seems to have no significant operations in the EU. Could Maduro shut
down DolarToday.com with a Venezuelan court order?

------
dang
Discussed a few weeks ago:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16952186](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16952186)

------
riffic
when it comes to a namespace such as .com or the DNS root, the only owner is
the party that controls this namespace.

------
ryanlol
Never use web.com/Network Solutions.

~~~
maxk42
Sounds more like France has been acting in bad faith. You can't just decree a
seizure of a domain because you're a political entity that wants it.

~~~
craftyguy
> You can't just decree a seizure of a domain because you're a political
> entity that wants it.

This is literally a case of that happening. So, you _can_ decree a seizure of
a domain because you're a political entity that wants it.

~~~
maxk42
Sure, and I suppose you could decree yourself ruler of the world, too.
Reality, however, is another matter entirely.

France will not win a legal battle over this outside of France.

~~~
tripletao
But the weird thing is that France didn't have to--the American registrar
obeyed their order, for no clear reason. The domain has now been transferred
to a French registrar. So even if an American court would never have ordered
the domain transferred, it will be trickier (but probably not impossible,
since Verisign ultimately controls .com and that's a US entity) for an America
court order to get it back.

~~~
ryanlol
There’s simply nothing tricky about American courts taking over .com domains,
at least not for the courts.

~~~
tripletao
I'm betting he incurs more legal fees than if the domain were still at a US
registrar; but yeah, I agree that if a US court orders the .com back to him,
then they can make it happen.

The whole story is weird. When web.com first locked the domain, why didn't he
seek an American court order to force web.com to transfer the domain to a
friendly registrar?

