Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Cloudflare threatens Italy exit over €14M fine

ioplus.nl

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 82 posts

Re: Cloudflare threatens Italy exit over €14M fine

#31

Post by bigfatkitten »

dhsysusbsjsi wrote: post #22

They tried a variant of this in Australia for a short period of time before realising IP blocking accidentally takes down thousands of legitimate businesses on shared hosting. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-05-17/concern-over-asic-int... They didn’t repeal the law but instead worked out better ways of using the existing powers after a review. https://www.infrastructure.gov.au/sites/default/files/austra...

It was inevitable. I’ve learned over the last few decades that people who actually understand how the Internet works don’t exist in huge numbers in Canberra. Especially not at places like ASIC, which for U.S. readers is the equivalent of the SEC.

Re: Cloudflare threatens Italy exit over €14M fine

#32

Post by x3n0ph3n3 »

nurettin wrote: post #25
x3n0ph3n3 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nah, sports broadcasters and organizations shouldn't get special veto privileges on the internet.

How would you solve banning of pirated live streams of matches? Do you believe every event should be accessible for free to anyone?

Content "piracy" is a service delivery problem. Case in point: Valve's Steam + the fall of game piracy.

Re: Cloudflare threatens Italy exit over €14M fine

#33

Post by shevy-java »

Europe needs to stop relying anything on US corporations. The politicians still did not get the memo - Trump and the TechBros declared de-facto war. This is the antithesis of a free market.

Edit: Actually, Cloudflare may have an indirect point in that I also think that access to information should be free. Nonetheless this still does not invalidate what Europe SHOULD do. But the politicians in the EU are not very clever, so ...

Re: Cloudflare threatens Italy exit over €14M fine

#34

Post by rtsam »

CJefferson wrote: post #30
atonse wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you read the details of the article? The regulator fined them for not hacking DNS to the whims of the media companies in Italy that want to clamp down on piracy by altering the way DNS works. DNS. The actual "open internet" I think you may have this backwards. To me it seems like something they should talk to local Italian ISPs about, not Cloudflare.

But cloudflare do block things. They tend to block things as a rule the American government wants blocking. The problem is they want to be the people who choose what gets blocked, rather than elected governments. To me, this whole thing is crazy, certainly pull out if you like, but I'm shocked how many people seem to be siding with the profit-making company over an elected government.

I can confirm that. Got blocked due to a frivolous report. Cloudflare blocked me and categorized my site as phishing. (censoring me from anyone that uses their systems to browse)

No support. No responses to emails or requests for a review by a human

They also sent a notice to my hosting provider. My hosting provider promptly looked at my site and closed the ticket. It was pretty clear to anyone that the report was malicious.

So yes, Cloudflare censors (to quote Matthew Prince) with "No judicial oversight. No due process. No appeal. No transparency"

Granted this could be just due to lack of staff and support

Re: Cloudflare threatens Italy exit over €14M fine

#36

Post by ronsor »

raincole wrote: post #26

> At the heart of the conflict is Italy’s ‘Piracy Shield,’ a system designed to combat illegal live streams of sports events, such as Serie A football matches. The law requires internet service providers to block reported piracy sites within 30 minutes. AGCOM insists that Cloudflare comply with these demands through its public DNS service, 1.1.1.1. When Cloudflare allegedly failed to do so, the regulator imposed a fi…

It's regular practice to block arbitrary websites in EU countries. From Spain to Germany to Italy, DNS blocks are common.

Naturally "rightsholders" abuse this often.

Re: Cloudflare threatens Italy exit over €14M fine

#38

Post by nurettin »

x3n0ph3n3 wrote: post #32
nurettin wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How would you solve banning of pirated live streams of matches? Do you believe every event should be accessible for free to anyone?

Content "piracy" is a service delivery problem. Case in point: Valve's Steam + the fall of game piracy.

Okay, very interesting, go on.

Re: Cloudflare threatens Italy exit over €14M fine

#39

Post by redox99 »

> The law requires internet service providers to block reported piracy sites within 30 minutes. AGCOM insists that Cloudflare comply with these demands through its public DNS service, 1.1.1.1. When Cloudflare allegedly failed to do so, the regulator imposed a fine of over €14 million.

Sports conglomerates and their lobbying should kindly fuck off.

If they want to sue a site the old fashioned web for IP infringement that's fine. But that 30 minute thing is absolute bullshit.

Re: Cloudflare threatens Italy exit over €14M fine

#40

Post by perihelions »

Cloudflare PR seems to have handled this badly (judging by the fast shift in HN tone). DNS censorship is wildly unpopular. This should have been one of the easier PR jobs in the tech world: they were handed free positive publicity on a silver platter.

Heck, HN expressly called on Cloudflare to take up this exact fight[0]; and now that they have, they've still, somehow, managed to turn most of HN against them.

How is that even possible?

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43448112 ("Italy demands Google poison DNS under strict Piracy Shield law (arstechnica.com)"; 9 months ago, 175 comments)

Top-rated comment: "It's one of the rare cases where the sheer size and international influence of companies like Google and Cloudflare can actually do some good for the world by fighting back against such laws."

Post reply on HN