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Comment by nairboon | Hacker News Reader

Host in Switzerland, that's where Quad9 operates from.

Switzerland is not in the EU, thankfully. And it seems to be one of the few places left in Europe where privacy is taken somewhat seriously.

Indeed. If it were just a question of Swiss law, we'd be in excellent shape. The problem is that France and Switzerland are both signatories to the Lugano Convention, while the US is not. As long as the Quad9 Foundation has to have a legal domicile somewhere, there will always be some lever that can be used against it. Switzerland was the best place, but does not offer perfect protection.

Switzerland has its own DNS blocklist that all ISPs obey. [1]

Quad9 doesn't obey it but I never understood how they can get away with that legally. I'd be interested in an explanation if someone knows more!

1. https://www.gespa.ch/en/fighting-illegal-gambling/access-blo...

Sounds like they get away with it legally because the law applies to ISPs and they’re not an ISP.

From your link:

> Internet service providers in Switzerland are obliged to take measures to prevent access to these domains (DNS blocking).

I suppose that's it.

It still feels a little strange that that loophole is allowed: everyone who has a Swiss ISP could switch to Quad9 and be strictly better off. But if everyone does that, then the DNS ban is completely ineffectual. Maybe I should let sleeping dogs lie.

I have a feeling the fact that people have to opt in to using Quad9 does a lot to help them in this case vs an ISP where all of their users are using the ISP’s DNS by default. But yeah it does seem like a “letter of the law vs spirit of the law thing”.

I opened the blocklist expecting some juicy Linux ISO sites and... it's all betting sites. I'm not even mad.

I'm a little mad because it's the principle of the thing.

In practice the only site I occasionally want to check that's blocked is Polymarket. I don't trade on there myself, but I find it useful to check the odds of certain events.

I don't personally care about betting sites but it's the legal precedent and principle that the government can add anything to such a list and make obligatory.

"First they came for the shady weird-ass online gambling sites...."

That's because the Swiss DNS blocking originated in an anti-unregulated-gambling law. Basically all unregulated gambling websites are blocked. There shouldn't be any other sites on that list.

Quad9 is not a telecommunications service provider as defined by Swiss law, which is where that application becomes enforced. Details of this (and many other things) can be found on the "Compliance and Applicable Law" section of the website. https://quad9.net/privacy/compliance-and-applicable-law/

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