Internet infrastructure company Cloudflare provides a range of connectivity and security services to customers around the globe.
As a result of its growing impact, the American company increasingly finds itself at the center of copyright complaints and pirate site blocking disputes.
In Spain, for example, this resulted in court-sanctioned blockades of Cloudflare’s infrastructure, without it being actively involved in the legal process. These broad blockades, that also affected legitimate customers, are legally challenged by Cloudflare which believes that they go too far.
This doesn’t mean that the company has not taken any action. If Cloudflare is involved as a party in legal proceedings, it has shown to comply with court orders. The company previously blocked domains of its pass-through service customers in Japan and Italy, for example. And these blocking measures continue to be expanded.
402 Blocked Domains in France
Cloudflare’s latest Transparency Report, published last week, shows that the company geo-blocked 402 domain names in France in 2024, based on 9 different court orders. These apply to customers of its pass-through (CDN) service and all are linked to sports streaming piracy.
The domain names in question are geo-blocked, which means that they remain available outside France. Cloudflare took a similar approach in Italy last year, where a court ordered it to block 30 pirate site domains.
While Cloudflare cooperates in these cases, it doesn’t see itself as the most logical candidate to enforce anti-piracy measures and continues to defend itself against these blocking requests.
“Because Cloudflare cannot remove content it does not host, other service providers are better positioned to address these issues,” the company notes.
“Among other things, any blocking by Cloudflare is of limited effectiveness, as a website will be accessible if it stops using Cloudflare’s network. Cloudflare therefore regularly pushes back against attempts to seek blocking orders.”
1.1.1.1 Blocking?
When it comes to blocking, Cloudflare makes a clear distinction between pass-through services and its publicly available DNS resolver 1.1.1.1. The latter can be used by people from anywhere in the world and due to the technical setup, geo-blocking isn’t straightforward.
Cloudflare therefore treats these DNS blocking efforts as requests to block content globally, even outside the jurisdiction of the originating courts and governments. This means that recent French and Italian court orders to block pirate sites through Cloudflare’s DNS could be noticed worldwide.
Despite these orders, Cloudflare says that, to date, it hasn’t blocked any content through the 1.1.1.1 DNS resolver. The company’s explanation is short on detail, but says that it found “alternate mechanisms” to comply with these court orders.
“Given the extraterritorial effect as well as the different global approaches to DNS-based blocking, Cloudflare has pursued legal remedies before complying with requests to block access to domains or content through the 1.1.1.1 Public DNS Resolver or identified alternate mechanisms to comply with relevant court orders.
“To date, Cloudflare has not blocked content through the 1.1.1.1 Public DNS Resolver,” Cloudflare adds.
U.S. Site Blocking Impact
Cloudflare didn’t reply to our request for additional context and detail on these “alternate” blocking mechanisms. However, the Transparency Report does note that the company sometimes geoblocks domains on its pass-through service, in response to DNS blocking orders
“Cloudflare has sometimes taken action to geoblock access to websites through Cloudflare’s pass-through CDN and security services, in response to orders directing Cloudflare to block through its public DNS resolver.”
However, if the targeted website does not use Cloudflare’s services, this approach cannot be implemented. What the company does in these instances is unclear.
Cloudflare’s stance is particularly relevant in the light of new legislative developments in the United States, where a site blocking bill was introduced late January. This bill specifically mentions DNS resolvers as potential blocking enforcers.
Based on comments in the latest Transparency Report, Cloudflare clearly objects to this role, and it will likely protest the proposal when it’s considered in more detail by lawmakers.
From: TF, for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.
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