Decision of the board of directors regarding the blocking of domain names

On October 21, 2004, the AFNIC’s board of directors discussed the matter of Mr. Laurent N., acting in his own name as a tradesman, using “EURODNS France” as a sign.

Mr. Laurent N. registered as a holder more than 4500 domain names, from May 11 to October 21 2004. Mr. Laurent N.’s dealings have been repeatedly brought to attention of the AFNIC, especially by trademarks’ holders. The aforesaid was warned as early as July 2004 that his practices might be opposed to the philosophy of the naming Charter.
The members of the consultative committees hold on September 29 and 30, decided to take all useful steps facing prejudicial behaviours , contrary to the spirit of the naming Charter and to the legal duties of the AFNIC, regarding the law of July 9, 2004, about electronic communications and audiovisual communication services.

Terms of the resolution voted by the Board of Directors

In application of article 36 of the naming Charter, the board of directors decided, on the 21st of October, the blocking, for a three months period, of the domain names registered by Mr. Laurent N. and the displaying of the list on a public website page of the AFNIC, in order to enable interested parties to claim their rights.

The “blocking” operation consists of removing a domain name from the DNS service and making it inoperative. The domain name nevertheless continues to be present in the Whois database (identified by the entries “Suspend” or “Inactif “) and continues to belong to the registrant. The blocked domain name cannot therefore be registered by a third party.

Schedule

Blocking of the domain names: Friday, 22 October, 2004
Displaying of the
list of the domain names affected by the blocking operation : Wednesday, 27 October 2004

Advice note to beneficiaries of domain names registered by Mr. Laurent N.

The decision of blocking affects domain names of which the holder is identified by Mr. Laurent N.’s SIREN number as a French tradesman. Registered names through EuroDNS acting as a registrar, of which Mr. Laurent N. is not the holder, are not involved by this matter.

Some non French individuals or structures may have suffered from this decision if they registered .fr domain names and authorizing Mr. N. to register himself as holder of these names. Mr. N. is therefore the sole interlocutor for these names, whereas the third parties are not known by the AFNIC. Therefore, the AFNIC urges the concerned individuals or structures to contact Mr. Laurent N. and ask him to organize as soon as possible th transfer of their domain names a new holder, respectful of the .fr naming Charter, which is the sole condition for making a domain name available again.

03/02/2005 update:
List
of blocked domain names on February 3rd 2005

07/04/2005 update:
List
of blocked domain names on April 6th 2005

04/05/2005 update:
Domain names list updated
in real time subject to omissions or pending operations.

19/03/2007 update:
The AFNIC and EuroDNS end the litigation that opposed them; the lists of blocked domain names are removed.