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Cloudflare tells U.S. govt that foreign site blocking efforts are trade barriers

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Re: Cloudflare tells U.S. govt that foreign site blocking efforts are trade barriers

#81

Post by grayhatter »

golemotron wrote: post #74

This comes from the dated perspective that free trade is universally good. Nations create their own trade rules and they ought to be able to enforce them. I consider that far preferable than attempts to exert extraterritorial control over services from other countries. If, say, Uruguay doesn't like content on Facebook, they are free to block it. In their opinion, they are protecting their citizens and that's ok. It s…

> This comes from the dated perspective that free trade is universally good.

lol, ok, I'll bite. Other than one side might try to change the rules; why should I believe is free trade is no longer universally good? What is the specific argument?

Because if the argument is that one side might impose taxes, duh? But that's no longer free trade is it?

If both sides were willing to play fair, why wouldn't that be better? And why shouldn't we all be trying to "encourage" everyone to play fair?

Re: Cloudflare tells U.S. govt that foreign site blocking efforts are trade barriers

#82

Post by Moto7451 »

cowboy_henk wrote: post #66
ACCount37 wrote: post #38

I'm no fan of Cloudflare, but they're completely in the right on that. Infrastructure for blocking websites simply shouldn't exist. Because if it's allowed to exist, it ends up subsumed by political and corporate interests, and becomes a tool of overreach and abuse. We've seen that happen over and over again. If US Trade Office can be leveraged to destroy internet censorship efforts in other countries, then so be it.

That's a bit rich coming from Cloudflare, a company that routinely blocks access to important and legitimate websites to huge parts of the world. A huge part of Cloudflare's customers use them specifically to block users' access to websites.

As someone who has had to implement these blocks, it’s not generally done because anyone wants to, it’s because someone passed a law that requires us to do it. I don’t get to override the ITAR or Entities list just because I don’t feel it’s fair someone is on it.

Re: Cloudflare tells U.S. govt that foreign site blocking efforts are trade barriers

#83

Post by cpursley »

NoMoreNicksLeft wrote: post #47
tiahura wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would be easy. Require the backbone CEO's to certify that their networks don't connect to networks that connect to China, Russia, Nigeria, etc. The burden would then shift to them. If they couldn't get a guarantee from a peer or customer, they would have to disconnect them.

>It would be easy. Require the backbone CEO's to certify that their networks don't connect to networks that connect to China, Russia, Nigeria, etc. And when other countries don't play ball? Then we shut down those backbones, and it's the United States that is isolate, not Russia (though please feel free to pick another target if you don't like Russia). No one's cutting off China, not without their economy dropping de…

Yeah, exactly. They were cut off from SWIFT and yet they do ample international trade. These think tank ideas from "domain experts" and political types rarely work in the real world. Russia, China and others do the same, block stuff - but people get the content, products, etc anyways.

Re: Cloudflare tells U.S. govt that foreign site blocking efforts are trade barriers

#84

Post by CGMthrowaway »

ACCount37 wrote: post #38

I'm no fan of Cloudflare, but they're completely in the right on that. Infrastructure for blocking websites simply shouldn't exist. Because if it's allowed to exist, it ends up subsumed by political and corporate interests, and becomes a tool of overreach and abuse. We've seen that happen over and over again. If US Trade Office can be leveraged to destroy internet censorship efforts in other countries, then so be it.

> Infrastructure for blocking websites simply shouldn't exist.

Isn't that exactly what Cloudflare is, in part? They happily block "malicious" traffic

Re: Cloudflare tells U.S. govt that foreign site blocking efforts are trade barriers

#85

Post by pjc50 »

ACCount37 wrote: post #38

I'm no fan of Cloudflare, but they're completely in the right on that. Infrastructure for blocking websites simply shouldn't exist. Because if it's allowed to exist, it ends up subsumed by political and corporate interests, and becomes a tool of overreach and abuse. We've seen that happen over and over again. If US Trade Office can be leveraged to destroy internet censorship efforts in other countries, then so be it.

> Infrastructure for blocking websites simply shouldn't exist.

I think people have forgotten how extreme a position this is: the idea that once something is on the internet, national law simply ceases to apply and governments should have absolutely zero control over obscene material, IP infringment, harassment, libel, foreign propaganda, money laundering, fraudulent financial services, gambling, and so on - simply because it's hosted in a different country.

Not even the US really believes that domestically .. or even when it comes to overseas enforcement, such as sending the FBI to New Zealand to get Kim Dotcom. Or the Pokerstars case.

Not to mention I am really skeptical of the magic invocation of "trade" to overrule national sovereignty. That leads you to stupid places such as Philip Morris trying to use the ISDS process to force Australia to accept an inherently poisonous product (fortunately they eventually lost). https://www.linklaters.com/insights/blogs/arbitrationlinks/2...

Re: Cloudflare tells U.S. govt that foreign site blocking efforts are trade barriers

#86

Post by bryanrasmussen »

ACCount37 wrote: post #38

I'm no fan of Cloudflare, but they're completely in the right on that. Infrastructure for blocking websites simply shouldn't exist. Because if it's allowed to exist, it ends up subsumed by political and corporate interests, and becomes a tool of overreach and abuse. We've seen that happen over and over again. If US Trade Office can be leveraged to destroy internet censorship efforts in other countries, then so be it.

so for example Germany should not be allowed to block neo-nazi sites?

illegal gambling sites in country X must be allowed if they are legal in country Y - Y being America I guess.

>it ends up subsumed by political and corporate interests I believe the term for this is legislated by the laws of particular lands and regions.

Essentially Cloudflare tells U.S Government to set the rules for rest of world please.

Re: Cloudflare tells U.S. govt that foreign site blocking efforts are trade barriers

#87

Post by exasperaited »

ACCount37 wrote: post #38

I'm no fan of Cloudflare, but they're completely in the right on that. Infrastructure for blocking websites simply shouldn't exist. Because if it's allowed to exist, it ends up subsumed by political and corporate interests, and becomes a tool of overreach and abuse. We've seen that happen over and over again. If US Trade Office can be leveraged to destroy internet censorship efforts in other countries, then so be it.

> If US Trade Office can be leveraged to destroy internet censorship efforts in other countries, then so be it.

So by implication you're actually completely fine with other countries pursuing their own objectives for businesses that choose to trade in their country.

Because you cannot, possibly, in 2025, be making an argument that the USA's interpretation of the way of things is unimpeachable. That would be absurd and laughable.

I look forward to you explaining to Germans and Israelis why Nazi symbols and Nazi websites should be legal because banning them hurts a US tech company's interests.

I'm pretty sure you will receive a variety of opinions, some of them in large fonts with an invitation to print them and roll them up for storage.

Re: Cloudflare tells U.S. govt that foreign site blocking efforts are trade barriers

#88

Post by golemotron »

grayhatter wrote: post #81
golemotron wrote: post #74

This comes from the dated perspective that free trade is universally good. Nations create their own trade rules and they ought to be able to enforce them. I consider that far preferable than attempts to exert extraterritorial control over services from other countries. If, say, Uruguay doesn't like content on Facebook, they are free to block it. In their opinion, they are protecting their citizens and that's ok. It s…

> This comes from the dated perspective that free trade is universally good. lol, ok, I'll bite. Other than one side might try to change the rules; why should I believe is free trade is no longer universally good? What is the specific argument? Because if the argument is that one side might impose taxes, duh? But that's no longer free trade is it? If both sides were willing to play fair, why wouldn't that be better?…

There are many arguments but the most straightforward one is that a country may decide that preserving particular industries is in their security interest. That can be extended to culture as well.

Japan closed itself off from the world for centuries during the Edo period. One could say that they suffered economically due to that, but on the other hand, they ended up creating one of the more unique cultures in the world, developing in ways very different from others. It's an interesting kind of diversity.

Re: Cloudflare tells U.S. govt that foreign site blocking efforts are trade barriers

#89

Post by blibble »

delusional wrote: post #73
blibble wrote: post #64

I'm not sure the US wants to bring attention to its massive trade surplus in services if I was the EU I would have responded to the threats of goods tariffs with a threat of service tariffs that will start off slow and increase every month that tariffs remain in effect initially 0% tax on Office 365/AWS/facebook+google ad sales, then after a year it's 20%, and so-on

That's exactly what they did. They didn't want to escalate the conflict, so they didn't end up using it. It's what they refer to as their "trade bazooka", and it's still around ready to be used.

it's not exactly what they did, because a "bazooka" is easy defeated by the same ratchet mechanism

the other side will never push enough at once to make bazooka style retaliation the correct strategy

Re: Cloudflare tells U.S. govt that foreign site blocking efforts are trade barriers

#90

Post by MichaelZuo »

rsingel wrote: post #77
cowboy_henk wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a bit rich coming from Cloudflare, a company that routinely blocks access to important and legitimate websites to huge parts of the world. A huge part of Cloudflare's customers use them specifically to block users' access to websites.

There's a big difference between a company making that decision (an edge provider) vs a country doing that at the network level. The rub comes in that nations, including the U.S., have laws about what they seem illegal content or services and reserve the right to force those to be blocked. In Thailand that might be criticism of the king; in the U.S., pirated TV streams; in another country, that could be gambling site…

Why is there a “big difference”?

Cloudflare has a significant enough marketshare it doesn’t seem to make a meaningful difference whether it’s blocked at this or that level, for the vast majority of end users.

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