Image copyright Internet Archive Image caption The web address used to advertise travel packages but now redirects users to a French government site 
 
 The French government is being sued over the way it has sought to take over the France.com web domain. 
 
 In 2015, France started legal action against Frenchman Jean-Noel Frydman, who had registered France.com in 1994. 
 
 Two years later, a French court ruled in France's favour and the government began to lobby domain host web.com to take control away from Mr Frydman. 
 
 And now Mr Frydman, who built a business around the domain, says France has "illegally" seized the site. 
 
 He says France.com was taken away from him without warning in mid-March. 
 
 And he has now begun legal action in Virginia in a bid to regain control of it. 
 
 Image copyright EPA Image caption The French government has been accused of illegally seizing the France.com domain 
 
 Mr Frydman is suing the French Republic, its Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Atout France tourist agency and domain registrar Verisign. 
 
 He alleges the government did not ask to license or buy the domain and instead "misused" the legal system to seize it. 
 
 'Bad faith' 
 
 "If it happened to me, it can happen to anyone," Mr Frydman told technology news site Ars Technica. 
 
 He said he had run France.com as an information hub for French people and fans of French culture living in the US. 
 
 And much of the information about French culture and events had been generated with the help of French government agencies, including its Ministry of Foreign Affairs. 
 
 But, despite this continuing official collaboration, the 2015 legal action had alleged that France.com had been acting in "bad faith" and did not have official permission to use the domain. 
 
 Mr Frydman has set up a website called unfairfrance.com detailing the history of France.com and the extent of its collaboration with the French state. 
 
 Web.com has not yet responded to a request for comment. ||||| In April of 2015, the State of France launched a legal battle – in France – to expropriate the domain name France.com, without any indemnification, from its rightful owner: the United States company France.com, Inc, claiming the latter had registered the domain name in bad faith and had not been authorized by the French state to use it. 
 
 This assertion is not only groundless and absurd, it’s entirely dishonest. This website presents the 20+ years of constant partnership between France.com and various entities and branches of the French government who were not only aware of France.com’s existence, but consistently encouraged and supported its initiatives and activities. 
 
 Scroll down 
 
 and judge for yourself if we have operated for the last 20+ years without authorization from the State or France and/or its tourism agency: Atout France 
 
 You can also dig deeper, by having a look at Financial documents, miscellaneous correspondence and partnership offers made to France.com. 
 
 “Don’t steal! The government hates competition.” (Libertarian slogan) ||||| A French-born American has now sued his home country because, he claims, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has illegally seized a domain that he’s owned since 1994: France.com 
 
 In the mid-1990s, Jean-Noël Frydman bought France.com from Web.com and set up a website to serve as a "digital kiosk" for Francophiles and Francophones in the United States. 
 
 For over 20 years, Frydman built up a business (also known as France.com), often collaborating with numerous official French agencies, including the Consulate General in Los Angeles and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. 
 
 However, sometime around 2015, that very same ministry initiated a lawsuit in France in an attempt to wrest control of the France.com domain away from Frydman. Web.com locked the domain, and Frydman even roped in the Berkman Klein Center at Harvard Law School to intervene on his behalf. 
 
 By September 2017, the Paris Court of Appeals ruled that France.com was violating French trademark law. Armed with this ruling, lawyers representing the French state wrote to Web.com demanding that the domain be handed over. 
 
 Finally, on March 12, 2018, Web.com abruptly transferred ownership of the domain to the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The company did so without any formal notification to Frydman and no compensation. 
 
 "I'm probably [one of Web.com's] oldest customers," Frydman told Ars. "I've been with them for 24 years... There's never been any cases against France.com, and they just did that without any notice. I've never been treated like that by any company anywhere in the world. If it happened to me, it can happen to anyone." 
 
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 On April 19, Frydman filed a federal lawsuit in Virginia in an attempt to get his domain name back. The suit names the French Republic, Atout France (a government tourism agency), the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the minister himself (Jean-Yves Le Drian), and VeriSign as defendants. 
 
 None of the defendants has yet made a formal appearance in the Alexandria, Virginia, courtroom. 
 
 Web.com, the original registrar, is not a party to the lawsuit. However, the company seems to have taken it upon itself to heed the French legal ruling and give up the France.com domain name without a fight. 
 
 As Frydman's civil complaint states: 
 
 Prior to the incidents complained of in this lawsuit, Defendants did not object to nor challenge Plaintiff's ownership or use of <France.com>. To the contrary, and as previously demonstrated in Exhibit A, Defendants publicly recognized Plaintiff as a leader in the tourism industry. In 2015, Defendants began expressing an interest in owning the <France.com> domain name and exploiting it for Defendants' own use. Defendants did not approach Plaintiff to purchase or license the domain, the trademark, or Plaintiff's underlying business and goodwill. Instead, in 2015, Defendants misused the French judicial system to seize the domain from Plaintiff without compensation, under the erroneous theory that Defendants were inherently entitled to take the domain because it included the word "France." Defendants knew that they did not, and do not, have a right to the word "France," as evidenced by Defendant Atout France's US Trademark Registration No. 4027580, filed in 2009, in which Defendant expressly disclaimed the exclusive right to the word "France." 
 
 The lawsuit accuses France of cybersquatting France.com and "reverse domain-name hijacking," among other allegations. 
 
 Web.com's chief legal officer, Matt McClure, did not respond to Ars' request for comment. 
 
 "They claim to be a company that's good for small businesses," Frydman said. "What a joke. They've been absolutely horrible, not even answering our emails." ||||| Back in 1994, the year the World Wide Web was actually born, a man by the name of Jean-Noël Frydman was smart enough to buy a domain that would soon become one of the Internet's most sought-after. 
 
 The French expat snapped up France.com from Web.com and set up a “digital kiosk” website for French speakers in the US. 
 
 As the world became increasingly dependent on all things digital, business grew for Frydman, who would regularly be approached by French government institutions to collaborate on campaigns on his coveted website. 
 
 However, the relationship had soured by 2015, with France's Ministry of Foreign Affairs launching a lawsuit to expropriate the domain from its owner. 
 
 Web.com blocked the transfer but French authorities did not desist. In 2017, Paris's Court of Appeals ruled that France.com was violating French trademark law and by March 2018, Web.com had caved in and abruptly handed over ownership of France.com to the country's Ministry of Foreign Affairs. 
 
 "I've been with them Web.com for 24 years,” Miami-based Frydman told tech news site Ars Technica. 
 
 “There's never been any cases against France.com, and they just did that without any notice. “ 
 
 On April 19th 2018, Frydman filed a federal lawsuit in Virginia against the French Republic itself, government tourism agency Atout France and the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs, as well as its head Jean-Yves Le Drian. 
 
 He's accusing them of "abusing the French judicial system to seize the plaintiff's estate without compensation, under the erroneous theory that the Defendants inherently had the right to take the estate because it included the word "France"". 
 
 "The defendants knew that they did not have, and do not have, a right to the word "France", as evidenced by the registration of the American brand Atout France under the number 4027580, filed in 2009, in which the defendant expressly waived the exclusive right to the word "France". 
 
 According to French tech site Siecle Digital, Frydman has a chance of winning the case, in part because at no point before the expropriation did French authorities put in a bid to legitimately buy the domain from him. 
 
 Frydman will be using VeriSign as defendants, an Internet company that has full licensing control over .com and .net domains. 
 
 None of the defendants has yet made a formal appearance at the US courtroom. 
 
 Currently if users type in France.com into their search browser they are redirected to France.fr, France's official brand website. 
 
 According to Frydman's LinkedIn profile, "France.com was a pioneer in the use of the Internet for publication. 
 
 "It was the first company to distribute a daily French national newspaper on the Internet (Le Monde); the first to publish an online travel guide to France; the first to create an online hotel booking engine. 
 
 "Its other early innovations include the first viral success of the French-speaking Internet (Les Webs d'Or), and the world's first hotel comments platform (à la TripAdvisor)." 
 
 As a final word of warning Frydman has said: I've never been treated like that by any company anywhere in the world. If it happened to me, it can happen to anyone."
– For 24 years, Jean-Noël Frydman owned a tres formidable web domain: France.com. Now he's suing to get it back. The French-born American shares his saga with Ars Technica, which reports that after buying the domain in 1994, Frydman built a site catering to US-based French speakers. In the process, he worked with French agencies, among them the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. According to the federal suit he filed in Virginia, around 2015 the ministry began warming to the idea of having the domain for itself, but didn't offer to buy Frydman out. Instead, it seized the domain through what Frydman alleges was a "[misuse of] the French judicial system" revolving around "the erroneous theory that Defendants were inherently entitled to take the domain because it included the word 'France.'" As for those judicial maneuverings, Ars Technica explains the Paris Court of Appeals last September ruled a violation of trademark law had occurred, and the country's lawyers then reached out to Web.com—Frydman says he's probably one of its oldest customers—requesting a transfer of the domain, which was granted March 12. Frydman says he was neither notified about the move nor paid anything for the domain. The Local reports that France.com currently redirects to the country's official France.fr site. As for Frydman, he's not wholly without a website, notes the BBC: He's currently running unfairfrance.com, which catalogs "the 20+ years of constant partnership between France.com and various entities and branches of the French government who ... consistently encouraged and supported its initiatives and activities." (A minister from this country claimed it has had the internet for 5,000 years.)