Big Tech vs. Big Sports... I just can't pick a side.
Who would you rather get paid? Athletes or programmers?
Neither of the entities they've mentioned represent the professions you've mentioned.
Cloudflare threatens Italy exit over €14M fine
61–70 of 82 posts
Re: Cloudflare threatens Italy exit over €14M fine
#62AGCOM is a bane on Italy's internet. Anyone who defends them doesn't understand the harm they cause to the rest of us, and all because Big Football doesn't want their peons to watch overpriced football matches for a more reasonable price.
I say this because the paid services are terrible, and pirating makes things almost too convenient. So it's not even a question of competing with a "free" product, but competing with something that does better and it's cheaper.
Re: Cloudflare threatens Italy exit over €14M fine
#63I really hope they proceed to exit Italy and destroy half of the internet for the country. At that point, there will be a huge backlash on soccer and AGCOM
Re: Cloudflare threatens Italy exit over €14M fine
#64I really hope they proceed to exit Italy and destroy half of the internet for the country. At that point, there will be a huge backlash on soccer and AGCOM
If half of the internet of a country depends on a single US company, then the problem is not soccer and AGCOM...
Re: Cloudflare threatens Italy exit over €14M fine
#65Italian IT guy here.
I understand Cloudflare’s position.
BUT
IMO making this only "Cloudflare good vs Italy bad" is too simple.
Italy’s anti-piracy system (Piracy Shield) is a shitshow: too fast, too automated, and often unfair. And "shit happens" is not ok when legit services get blocked too (like Google Drive on 19 Oct 2024).
One point: if a private company can say "we will not comply" and also hint they can pull services from an entire country, this is not legal stuff anymore, it’s soft power. DNS and DDoS protection is infrastructure, and infrastructure is not neutral.
So here we have a critical infrastructure player taking a strong position, and becoming a political actor, and lately it doesn’t always feel accidental.
One more tiny thing: Cloudflare did not fully leave Russia after the 2022 invasion, saying "Russia needs more access to the Internet, not less". So... for me it feels a bit weird to frame this as an "Italian law" problem (valid point), when the real question is: who decides, and with what responsibility, when infrastructure providers should comply or resist?
Re: Cloudflare threatens Italy exit over €14M fine
#66What a shameless load of reframing. Let’s balance that out a little. Italy is doing something immoral and significantly harmful, foreigners considered leaving rather than becoming complicit, this guy is morally offended that foreigners think they’re allowed to not be in Italy.
OK, they are foreigners, but does that mean they can ignore the law and avoid paying fines?
and they are not simply "foreigners" but the largest web security company serving the country (including public authority websites).
Re: Cloudflare threatens Italy exit over €14M fine
#67Europe 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 cle…
> But the politicians in the EU are not very clever
Much worse, because in this case hanlon's razor does not apply
I wanna say we (Europeans) are an economic colony of the USA, but I do not have the expertise to do, so...
However, the institutions piss European IT guys off for years (even before the GDPR), but "there are contracts", things continue as they are
Re: Cloudflare threatens Italy exit over €14M fine
#68I find myself on Cloudflare’s side here, or at least Cloudflare finds itself on the side of privacy.
Italian IT guy here
basically I agree with Cloudflare too, it just bothers me a company has made such an unneutral statement - considering how they has always presented themself
Re: Cloudflare threatens Italy exit over €14M fine
#69Lucky Italians. Can we sign up for Cloudflare to leave too?
Italy is on the side of censorship and IP blocking. Cloudflare is on the side of freedom. In this case your priors are wrong and the parties you should cheer for are reversed.
> Cloudflare is on the side of freedom
Are we sure? To me, it seems like a very convenient choice, both economically and politically
Re: Cloudflare threatens Italy exit over €14M fine
#70Italian IT guy here. I understand Cloudflare’s position. BUT IMO making this only "Cloudflare good vs Italy bad" is too simple. Italy’s anti-piracy system (Piracy Shield) is a shitshow: too fast, too automated, and often unfair. And "shit happens" is not ok when legit services get blocked too (like Google Drive on 19 Oct 2024). One point: if a private company can say "we will not comply" and also hint they can pull s…
The CEO's outrage is most likely politically motivated. The current US administration appears to support basically all of the US tech companies against any foreign regulation. Therefore, it makes sense to kick and scream in this case to see if the US government will pressure Italy to make life easier for them.
Note that I mostly agree that the Italian anti-piracy system (and these kinds of systems in general) are super problematic, and it's like using a nuke to crack a walnut.