Public prosecutors are ordering telecoms companies to block access to certain websites. Only Fredy Künzler, CEO of the internet provider Init7, is fighting back.

Republik.ch is a digital magazine. Anyone wishing to read or listen to its articles needs an internet access.

For republik.ch is clear: without the internet, there is no publication, no discussion with readers, no engagement with political, legal, economic or cultural life. Without journalism, there is no democracy; but without the internet, there is no journalism.

The fact that we can read articles, send emails, research and surf the web, or stream films in this country is thanks to various Swiss internet providers.

One of them is Init7; a relatively small player in the industry, but one with backbone.

The CEO and founder, Fredy Künzler – a newly re-elected local deputy from the Social Democrats in Winterthur – is seen as a rebel in the IT scene. A rebel with success.

For example, Init7 reported industry giant Swisscom to the Competition Commission because Swisscom deliberately built its fibre-optic network in such a way that competitors did not have fair access. The authorities ruled in Init7’s favour and banned Swisscom from this practice.

Künzler has also been campaigning for years against internet surveillance by the Swiss intelligence service.

This is a way of interception of data directly at the source, via internet cables. Here too, the CEO of Init7 is trying to prevent the «cyber soldiers» from Zimmerwald in Bern from accessing data from his lines.

And Fredy Künzler likes to provoke: whilst Swisscom, Sunrise or Salt usually implement government orders without questioning them, the Init7 boss publicly describes their CEOs as “Höseler”.

A dangerous precedent

For several months now, the Winterthur-based provider has also been clashing with prosecutors in the Romandie, french part of Switzerland. In the view of public prosecutors in Vaud and Valais, certain websites must not be accessible via its network.

In other words: Init7 is being asked to censor websites.

There are four cases that Künzler and his legal team must deal with.

Case 1: The domains of websites that lure users with fraudulent investment offers are to be blocked. Init7 has since taken this case from the canton of Vaud to the Federal Supreme Court and applied for a stay of execution of the order to avoid the fines (see Case 4). However, the highest court rejected the application. Init7 is still awaiting the decision on the main issue.

Case 2: Also concerns a website involving investment fraud; in this instance, the Valais public prosecutor’s office has intervened. It too is demanding that the website be blocked. The case is pending before the Cantonal Court in Sion.

Case 3: The Vaud public prosecutor’s office is also targeting a website run by climate activists, which is to be blocked by internet service providers. The case is before the Cantonal Court in Lausanne.

Case 4: Relates to the first and oldest case from Vaud. Because Fredy Künzler refuses to block the said pages provisionally, the public prosecutor’s office has slapped him with a fine of 6,000 francs: for failing to comply with an official order. In other words, because he refuses to comply within the shortest possible time and without exhausting all legal remedies for website blocking. It is striking that the fine is surprisingly high and comes relatively close to the statutory maximum of 10,000 francs.

Yet Fredy Künzler is willing to accept the financial risks because he considers the prosecutors’ orders to be unlawful. He insists on a court ruling because dangerous precedents are being set here. There is a lot at stake, but the final judicial ruling has not yet been made.

In none of the cases mentioned.

Nevertheless, the public prosecutors are insisting on immediate blocking and threatening further fines.

But what exactly is the provider supposed to block? How and why?

And: Are network blocks even permitted in Switzerland?

Network blocks not provided for in criminal law

As mentioned, the first two cases facing Init7 concern fraudulent websites. The case in Vaud involves supposed investment platforms that lure people in with huge profits and then swindle those who fall for the scam. Around 70 victims are claiming damages totalling 1.7 million Swiss francs. This has been announced by the Vaud public prosecutor’s office, which is demanding that 10 internet service providers ‘immediately seize’ the URLs of the fraudulent websites.

In the Valais case, prosecutors are also referring to investment fraud; they mention around 10 victims from Switzerland, a “concrete suspicion” and “as yet unidentified individuals” believed to be behind the fraudulent schemes.

The recipients of the seizure orders issued by the public prosecutors in Vaud and Valais include, alongside Init7, Swisscom, Sunrise and Salt, amongst others.

The major players in the market are complying with these orders, but not so the Winterthur-based provider. Of course, Fredy Künzler and his legal team – Simon Schlauri in Zurich, Sylvain Métille and Marie-Laure Percassi in Lausanne – are not seeking to protect investment fraudsters. Rather, they fear that the prosecutors from French-speaking Switzerland are opening Pandora’s box with their approach – with far-reaching consequences.

Künzler and his lawyers argue:

• Network blocks are not provided for in criminal law. They exist only for two specific cases, regulated by two special laws: in the Money Gaming Act, where foreign online gambling providers are concerned, and in the Telecommunications Act, to prevent the dissemination of child pornography.

• For other network blocks, prosecutors lack a legal basis. The legislature has even explicitly rejected the introduction of further network blocks.

• Seizures and blocks are not the same thing, but the public prosecutors in Valais and Vaud do not distinguish between them. They cite an article in the Code of Criminal Procedure which governs seizure (and not website blocking).

• From a purely technical standpoint, it is not possible for an internet service provider to seize a domain. They do not possess the necessary data for this and have no rights whatsoever over the websites in question.

• The orders issued by the public prosecutors’ offices in Vaud and Valais effectively amount to enabling website blocking across the whole of Switzerland through the back door – without any legal basis. This constitutes an impermissible extension of existing law, jeopardises internet freedom and neutrality, and opens the floodgates to censorship efforts.

(….)

Significant collateral damage

A brief report by the Switch Foundation shows that the blocking of internet domains (such as Republik.ch) by telecoms companies can indeed cause significant collateral damage.

Because: for technical reasons, Swiss internet service providers cannot selectively block individual services (such as http://, https:// or email) or subpages of a website, but only the entire domain. Email addresses linked to a domain would be particularly affected (for example, the email address adrienne.fichter@republik.ch if the domain Republik.ch were blocked).

This is because internet service providers use a protocol called DNS (Domain Name System), which functions like a digital address book: it translates the name of a website (such as ‘example.ch’) into a number, the so-called IP address, but does not recognise which specific subpage or service is being accessed. So when a provider such as Swisscom sets up a block, the entire websites—including all their content and often even the associated email services—become inaccessible.

To block only individual pages within a website, as public prosecutors sometimes demand, internet providers would have to monitor and analyse their customers’ entire internet traffic in detail. This would involve an extremely high level of technical and organisational effort, which is why Swiss providers generally do not have such infrastructure.

Furthermore, existing blocks can be easily circumvented by users: anyone who configures their computer settings to use a freely available public service – such as the Swiss service Quad9 – for address resolution instead of their telecom provider’s standard DNS service (such as Swisscom) (which can be done with just a few clicks) is not affected by the block.

The Switch Foundation is well versed in this matter, as it co-operates the Quad9 DNS service, amongst other things. It has also been affected by a similar demand itself. For instance, the music conglomerate Sony demanded the blocking of piracy websites specifically for Germany – even though this was technically impossible for a small company like Quad9 to implement. Quad9 successfully fought back through several legal instances – and won this case in Germany.

The internet company Init7 now finds itself in a similar ‘David versus Goliath’ situation.

The third case shows that it is anything but an exaggeration to speak of censorship. The Vaud public prosecutor’s office is demanding that Init7 block access to a website run by climate activists. The group calls itself ‘Grondements des Terres’ and is suspected of being involved in an arson attack on the Holcim cement plant in Bretonnières, which caused property damage in June 2025.

However, the prosecutors do not claim that the website called for this action or any other illegal acts. They cite a general reference to the organisation’s Instagram page as the reason why they wish to block the site. Here too, 10 Swiss internet providers, including the major ones, are being ordered to immediately block or ‘seize’ access to Grondementsdesterres.org; failure to comply immediately will result in a fine.

The Winterthur-based company Init7 is also fighting back against this.

And how do the prosecutors justify the network blocks they have ordered?

Are computer data objects?

“The aim of the public prosecutor’s office is to prevent access to a specific criminal website in Switzerland,” writes the Vaud public prosecutor’s office in response to a query from Republik. The prosecutors take the view that objects used to commit a criminal offence can be “seized and confiscated”; based on Article 263 of the Criminal Procedure Code and Article 69 of the Criminal Code.

Furthermore, they argue that computer data is treated as property. This, they say, is the case law of the Federal Supreme Court.

IT lawyer Simon Schlauri disagrees.

Monika Simmler, a professor of criminal law at the University of St Gallen, also do not support the public prosecutors’ arguments.

She says that internet service providers such as Init7 grant access to the internet, but do not control the content. It is therefore not possible to take anything away from the providers or force them to hand over data. “What was demanded of Init7 is to take preventive action and actively and continuously block access to content; that is, to data that is not stored on its servers and over which the provider has no control.”

A “seizure” is therefore clearly not possible, according to the professor.

Monika Simmler, in agreement with the Init7 legal team, takes the view that there are only two legal bases for blocking websites: the Money Gaming Act and the Telecommunications Act (against child abuse material).

Neither of these applies to the websites in question in the Valais and Vaud cases.

This inevitably raises the question: why are the prosecuting authorities taking action against the internet service providers rather than against the hosting providers of the targeted websites, including that of Grondementsdesterres.org?

A hosting provider is the service provider that makes the storage space and technical infrastructure available on which the website and its content are stored. Intervention here would be far more logical. It would also affect ‘only’ the website and thus not paralyse all communication by those concerned.

Professor of Criminal Law Monika Simmler says: ‘Hosting providers are content-related providers. They have control over the content and enable its dissemination.” It is, however, questionable whether requests to block access made to hosting providers are proportionate, as this too involves a “very broad interpretation in favour of the authorities”. Unlike with internet providers such as Init7, “the action here could, at most, be based on seizure”.

As for the website of the climate activists ‘Grondements des Terres’, the Geneva-based IT firm Infomaniak would need to be contacted.

Republik sent a media request- and got a reply from Boris Siegenthaler, founder and Chief Strategy Officer, stating that nothing of the sort had been received.

Neither from a court nor from a law enforcement agency.

The Vaud public prosecutor’s office, at least, has an explanation for this. It considers a blocking order against hosting providers to be disproportionate, because blocking a website renders it inaccessible to the entire world. Yet, according to the prosecutors, the orders issued to Swisscom and others were intended solely to prevent the Swiss population from accessing it.

You can read the full article by my colleague Brigitte Hürlimann (including a brilliant illustration by Lisa Rock) here (in german): https://www.republik.ch/2026/04/14/netzsperren-die-grossen-kuschen-der-rebell-kaempft

This is an english translation (made by deepl.com, added by some personal editing).