Online piracy, Agcom fines Cloudflare more than 14 million
Italy’s communications regulator AGCOM issued a fine of about €14 million against Cloudflare, saying the company did not comply with an order issued under Italy’s anti piracy framework to disable access to specified pirated content. AGCOM’s position is that public DNS services can be required to act when they are involved in making illegal streaming sites reachable, and it points to the Piracy Shield process that aims to enforce rapid blocking once a target is validated.
Cloudflare rejects the decision and says it will challenge it. In public comments, the company argues that forcing a global recursive DNS resolver such as 1.1.1.1 to filter domains and IPs is disproportionate and risks collateral damage, including overblocking lawful sites and creating precedents that could be used for broader censorship. Reporting also notes that the Italian regime is intended to operate fast, often within minutes, and that the scope is framed to include providers involved in access, including DNS and potentially VPN services.
