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

torrentfreak.com

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

#131

Post by youngtaff »

jalk wrote: post #119
exasperaited wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 an…

You are missing the point. Blocking a CDN providers IP range, means blocking all the websites using the CDN - not just the nazi-poster.com.

Well then perhaps the CDN shouldn’t be protecting those sites?

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

#132

Post by remarkEon »

iamnothere wrote: post #126
pjc50 wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 be…

> 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. This has more or le…

> Zero control is an exaggeration—the worst lawbreakers still face justice under the current system, and that seems ok.

Doesn’t scale.

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

#133

Post by remarkEon »

ACCount37 wrote: post #102
CGMthrowaway wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Infrastructure for blocking websites simply shouldn't exist. Isn't that exactly what Cloudflare is, in part? They happily block "malicious" traffic

Part of the reason I don't like Cloudflare. Their "black hole the entire country" function is a function no company should provide.

Why not? There’s no right to force everyone on the internet to interact with everyone else.

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

#134

Post by everfrustrated »

We have a technical mechanism now to be able to disambiguate the reputations of customers behind a single network - ASNs.

Why doesn't cloudflare require its more difficult customers to have an ASN - then their reputation and cloudflares can be more easily separated. This wouldn't have to rely on flimsy static IP lists either.

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

#135

Post by iamnothere »

remarkEon wrote: post #132
iamnothere wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. This has more or le…

> Zero control is an exaggeration—the worst lawbreakers still face justice under the current system, and that seems ok. Doesn’t scale.

Doesn’t need to. The optimum amount of lawbreaking is non-zero. As long as we are catching the worst criminals and creating reasonable incentives to avoid crime, we are doing enough. Some amount of lawbreaking is to be expected in a free society; it’s literally the price of freedom.

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

#136

Post by lioeters »

giorgioz wrote: post #2

I hosted a website on Cloudflare and I sent a link to it to a friend on a Sunday. The friend told me the website was down. Turns out Spain blocks IP addresses belonging to Cloudflare during big football matches because some pirate streaming websites are hosted on Cloudflare. https://www.reddit.com/r/europe/comments/1nm80wz/trying_to_u... I decided to go back to AWS. Frankly Cloudflare is choosing the wrong battle on…

As much as I'm skeptical of Cloudflare's dominant role, the problem here is not with Cloudflare but the politicians in Spain catering to LaLiga the football league. They're disrupting their country's public web infrastructure in favor of private money interests.

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

#137

Post by sealeck »

blibble wrote: post #89
delusional wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

> because a "bazooka" is easy defeated by the same ratchet mechanism

That's an argument for capitulation in general: it's not an argument specifically against extending the field of scope to include services.

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

#138

Post by yorwba »

RobotToaster wrote: post #92

Previously the WTO ruled that USA had imposed illegal trade barriers against Antigua that violate the GATS treaty by attempting to criminalise any website in any country that takes wagers from Americans[0]. I'm pretty sure any site blocking effort would violate the same treaty, but those cases can't be taken to the WTO due to the USA blocking appointments to the WTO appellate body since 2019 [1] [0] https://en.wikipe…

The US lost in the gambling case because their restrictions on foreign websites were stricter than those on domestic ones. The GATS doesn't prohibit countries from regulating trade, they only have to do so in a non-discriminatory manner. Spain isn't blocking foreign websites for copyright infringement that would be legal domestically, so they're in compliance with their obligations.

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

#139

Post by Ajedi32 »

pjc50 wrote: post #85
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 be…

I think if something is hosted in a different country, the laws of that country apply to that service. It's not under your jurisdiction, so you have no say in whether it's allowed to exist, nor should you.

You can, of course, pass a law making it illegal for your citizens to communicate with that service, but I think it's really important to understand that that's what's happening. You are passing a law which applies to your citizens and their right to communicate with people in other countries; it's their freedoms you are placing limits on, not the freedoms of the foreign website. Sometimes when you frame things that way, such restrictions stop making sense. (Though perhaps not always.)

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

#140

Post by jalk »

youngtaff wrote: post #131
jalk wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are missing the point. Blocking a CDN providers IP range, means blocking all the websites using the CDN - not just the nazi-poster.com.

Well then perhaps the CDN shouldn’t be protecting those sites?

Different countries have different laws regarding what falls under freedom of speech. The CDN providers say they take a net-neutrality stance. If a court order from a specific country tells them to block certain sites, I'm pretty sure they will comply, but only for clients coming from within that country.
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