November 6, 2025
When anti-piracy scores an own goal
Cloudflare Tells U.S. Govt That Foreign Site Blocking Efforts Are Trade Barriers
Match-day internet blackouts? Users rage while skeptics say Cloudflare is playing victim
TLDR: Cloudflare urged the U.S. to treat foreign site-blocking as a trade barrier because it knocks legit sites offline. Commenters split between calling Cloudflare hypocritical, sharing match-day outage horror stories, and worrying the U.S. could copy China-style web controls—why it matters: everyday services get caught in the crossfire.
Cloudflare just told the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) that foreign “site blocking” is wrecking legit services—and the comments lit up. The standout? Match-day internet blackouts. User giorgioz says Spain straight-up blocks Cloudflare IPs during big soccer games, nuking innocent sites along with pirate streams—his friend’s site went down on a Sunday link. Cue the meme: “Football 1 — Internet 0.”
Then the cynics pile in. beardyw snarks that calling it “trade barriers” is just Cloudflare angling for D.C. attention. stego-tech goes harder, calling Cloudflare’s plea “crocodile tears,” slamming the company for defending bad actors online, and basically saying: you built a shield, now live with the stray bullets. On the flip side, ivl argues Cloudflare’s right—that EU crackdowns in Spain and Italy are a sledgehammer approach, smashing tens of thousands of good sites to swat a few pirates. Italy’s “Piracy Shield”? Commenters dubbed it “the own goal,” recalling when Google Drive got knocked out for half a day.
The spiciest thread wonders if the U.S. could copy China’s Great Firewall—digitalsushi asks how many switches America would need to flip to wall off the web. The vibe: collateral damage is real, motives are messy, and the memes write themselves as users fear anti-piracy turning into anti-everyone.
Key Points
- •Cloudflare submitted to the USTR’s 2026 National Trade Estimate Report that foreign site-blocking regimes are trade barriers harming U.S. tech providers.
- •In Spain, courts authorize overbroad IP address blocks that disrupt tens of thousands of legitimate websites with no judicial remedy for affected parties.
- •Italy’s Piracy Shield requires rapid blocking compliance, leading to collateral damage including a February 2024 Cloudflare IP block and an October Google Drive outage.
- •Italy is considering expanding Piracy Shield to public DNS resolvers and VPN services, and uses ex parte blocking orders that deny companies the chance to oppose them.
- •Cloudflare warns that new automated blocking proposals in France, and non-intervention by Spain’s government, perpetuate significant trade barriers.