Cloudflare may pull servers out of Italy over order that it block pirate sites

Cloudflare has been hit with a hefty fine of 14.2 million euros by Italy's communications regulatory body, AGCOM, for its refusal to comply with an order to block access to pirate websites through its 1.1.1.1 DNS service. The regulatory agency announced the penalty yesterday, stating that the company is required to disable DNS resolution for specific domains and route traffic away from IP addresses identified by copyright holders. The fine was issued under Italy's contentious Piracy Shield law, which allows for penalties of up to 2% of a company's annual revenue. AGCOM decided to impose a fine equivalent to 1% of Cloudflare's annual turnover. This action stems from a blocking order that was first communicated to Cloudflare in February 2025. In response, Cloudflare has vowed to contest the fine and has even suggested the possibility of removing all its servers from cities across Italy. The company argues that implementing a filter for the estimated 200 billion daily requests to its DNS infrastructure would lead to increased latency, adversely affecting the performance for legitimate websites as well. AGCOM, however, dismissed Cloudflare's concerns, asserting that the required blocking measures would not negatively impact legitimate websites, as the IP addresses in question were explicitly linked to copyright violations. A September 2025 report on the Piracy Shield law indicated that numerous legitimate websites were inadvertently affected by such blocking efforts, with many operators experiencing service disruptions, while illegal streaming services continued to find ways to circumvent enforcement. The Piracy Shield law, introduced in 2024, aims to combat live sports piracy rapidly by enabling the blocking of piracy-related domains and IP addresses within a tight timeframe of 30 minutes. In light of the fine, Cloudflare's co-founder and CEO, Matthew Prince, expressed intentions to challenge the unjust penalty, noting that the company already has multiple legal disputes in progress concerning the broader implications of the law.