[sebastiennight]

For those who (like me) missed the essential key word in the OP's title:

This ruling is about copyright, and seems mostly unrelated to recent conversations about escaping censorship and surveilance, and the overall final throes of the open web.

It's still pretty important since the lawsuit filed by the Anne Frank Fonds could be caricatured as "if this content is illegal in our country, it should not be on the Internet in other countries, because our citizens can still circumvent the publisher's geofence and access it" which would have wild consequences if that line of thought was applied.

But, still:

> At its core, the case forced Europe's top judges to answer a highly technical question: if a publisher actively tries to block visitors from a specific country, are they still breaking the law if a user sneaks past the digital border using circumvention software?

> According to the CJEU, the answer is no.

Could be conceived to have a tenuous link to the current debate on censorship, surveilance, etc.

[petcat]

Somewhat related to this same debate on censorship:

French regulators order block of Polymarket's website [0]

> The French gambling regulator said the site's continued availability constituted advertising. A ban on financial transactions to the site was already in place.

After failing to compel Polymarket to geoblock France, it's crazy that French "regulators" can just order ISPs to block a website without any judicial review just because the mere existence of it on the internet constitutes "advertising" to French people.

It seems like the EU in general is struggling badly with how to control internet access. Whether it's blocking VPNs, requiring access to private chats, or just blocking websites completely.

[0] https://www.lemonde.fr/en/france/article/2026/07/17/france-b...

[dgellow]

Are you aware it’s the case in the US too? I don’t see what is supposed to be bad or terrifying here. French regulators (why the scare quotes?) entire reason d‘être is what you frame as suspicious, but it’s pretty standard, the state governs the infrastructure in its territory

[petcat]

US regulators don't order ISPs to block websites.

The FBI will occasionally seize a domain, but only after a court order.

[stackghost]

>US regulators don't order ISPs to block websites.

Of course they do, mostly for intellectual property reasons.

[foota]

Through the courts though, right?

[coldtea]

If the courts are almost always sympathetic, does it matter?

[AnthonyMouse]

Also notice that the FBI has no jurisdiction over foreign domains. It happens that the .com (in addition to .us) registry is in the US, but e.g. the .ru registry is in Russia and not under the jurisdiction of US courts.

[inigyou]

Unless it's .tv or .to or .me or many others that are administered by organisations under the control of the US. The US seized Telegram's domain t.me by using an "OFAC sanction" whatever that is.

[one33seven]

In germany it's an organization of the biggest copyright holders that make ISPs block sites, without any court order.

[crest]

What make it even dumber is that following their block lists is voluntary for ISPs. The CUII is just a cabal of ISPs and intellectual "property" holders.

[pembrook]

This is a red herring.

We're not arguing about whether it is standard for governments to attempt to exercise maximal control.

We're arguing about whether governments executing censorship regimes via ISPs (like the Chinese Communist Party) without any balanced legal proceedings is a good thing.

And no, it does not happen like that in the US.

[inigyou]

Is it the norm in France for the regulator to block gambling sites without a court process? Polymarket is obviously a gambling site, so if so, this is no surprise. Polymarket can probably challenge the decision in a court process.

[Hacker_Yogi]

Sorry if I come across as being pedantic but it's actually the Communist Party of China - the CPC, even though many, esp. in the US, use the wrong abbreviation - CCP.

[Antibabelic]

It is pedantic. Saying that people should say CPC instead of CCP adds nothing to the conversation. If it grinds your gears then maybe starting with organizations like the Encyclopedia Britannica[0] rather than random Hacker News commenters might prove more effective.

[0] https://www.britannica.com/topic/Chinese-Communist-Party

[inigyou]

Um actually it's 中国共产党

[smolder]

Chinese Communist Party or Communist Party of China makes little difference. There is a clear convention and no clear reason to change it.

[coldtea]

>It seems like the EU in general is struggling badly with how to control internet access.

It struggles badly with how to control everything more and more. What was an economic union of markets has become an uber-government that gives more and more power to itself.

Not that the US or the rest is far behind, but in this case it's accompanied with even more incompetence and disconnected to the real problems.

[vrganj]

The EU was never just an economic union of markets. Hell, the Schuman declaration from 1950, the closest thing it has to a founding document, calls for an ever closer union.

[coldtea]

That how it was sold, whatever Schuman had in mind, and increasingly encroached scope that Europeans voted again and again against.

The original actual scope was even more limited than a unified market: coal and steel control.

[Sleaker]

Devils advocate question: Isn't registering an ip to name essentially advertising? You're paying a registrar to return your Internet address location when searched for.

[AnthonyMouse]

This is like saying that having a trademark in the US is advertising in France because you're paying the USPTO to publish your trademark registration.

If your scenario makes it impossible for someone to do ordinary business in country A but not in country B then it's fundamentally unworkable.

[ButlerianJihad]

Not merely DNS names, but in IP routing, announcing a route is known as "advertising" it. You and your ISP are literally advertising a path for others to find your site via TCP/IP.

[AnthonyMouse]

The two obvious problems being that a) you're advertising that so that people in the countries you actually intend to do business in can find it, and b) the same IP address may be hosting thousands of independent sites any subset of which could be intended to be accessed by people in the other jurisdiction, and publishing the route is done for them.

[redeeman]

no, that is a ridiculous line of reasoning

[sophacles]

Not really.

Why would people pay so much for the $brand_name.com, etc if there wasn't a marketing component to it?

[stackghost]

Marketing and advertising are two related but distinct functions.

[anamexis]

Having a marketable address is not advertising.

[nightski]

I mean I pay for a domain for my homelab. No one else uses it.

[____mr____]

> it's crazy that French "regulators" can just order ISPs to block a website without any judicial review just because the mere existence of it on the internet constitutes "advertising" to French people.

This is entirely normal if you subscribe to any form of current/past neoliberal ideology surrounding trade, borders and embargos. If you believe that an embargo towards a certain country or business is valid because you believe they are a threat to national/public security, I see little difference between that and ISPs being forbidden from working with certain companies/websites/ip ranges

[spiderfarmer]

I don’t think it’s crazy to enforce laws, especially given the leeway the government gave that predatory website.

[VWWHFSfQ]

> given the leeway the government gave that predatory website.

They are only blocking it because the French gambling mafia/authority is not getting their cut. They do not care in any way at all about a "predatory" gambling website.

They just want their share.

[lokar]

They want them to follow legally enacted laws in an open democracy.

[sam_lowry_]

It's all about nuance. The gambling mafia comment is pure gold.

[irishcoffee]

If you’re aware of the organization called “FIFA” you can’t believe this is true.

I responded to the wrong comment, I ment to respond to the GP.

[Fnoord]

Fifa is Swiss, not French.

[LunaSea]

So why are all 50 US states not allowing sports betting?

[petcat]

I don't care about sports betting. I care about government blocking websites just because it exists on the internet. It was already illegal for Polymarket to accept bets from French people.

FanDuel cannot operate in France but their website isn't blocked. So how do we explain this?

France, EU, Italy, Spain, La Liga are just consistently making fools out of themselves trying to block everything on the internet when they don't like it.

Maybe it's just because regulatory censorship is inconsistent and doesn't make any sense. It's like the China firewall but even dumber and less effective.

[inigyou]

So if something is illegal you don't think it's moral to enforce that people don't do it because just being illegal should be enough?

Note there's no liability on the ISPs, they do not have to pay a fine for not having blocked it, they do not have to ban alternative DNS. In Europe there is apparently a legal mindset that you can recruit a third party to conduct an action that is not onerous to enforce a blockade. A court can point to someone who has a DNS server and order them to block certain lookups.

[spiderfarmer]

Your entire argument is based on the fact that France cannot fight all websites at once? Will you change your opinion if Fanduel and others are blocked in 6 months as well?

[Bayart]

The decision was made in the context of foreign interference with elections.