Cloudflare needs to be very careful here. If they go scorched earth and the Olympics aren't impacted due to last-minute efforts, all future contracts will be taking a hard look at their competition.
They really should do this, this is the right and honorable thing to do instead of interfering with local governments and deriding of government organizations by their CEO.
I don't even agree with what the Italian government did, but more companies need to do this instead of lobbying for or against laws. No one elected you. The loud voice and influence you wield because of success as a commercial entity does not entitle you a louder voice and power than the citizens of that country. Pull out, if the Italian people don't like the result, they can work on getting things changed. They didn't vote for @eastdakota
Same goes for apple, google, microsoft, signal, twitter, etc.. I fear what all these have in common is the parasitical oligarchy in the US where companies, CEOs and billionaires puppeting the government with the string for everyone to see (what will anyone do about it?), and it doesn't even register for a moment that there is anything abnormal or harmful about it.
In a democracy, the person who controls popular opinion is the ultimate ruler. That person is supposed to be other citizens as individuals.
A wolf in sheep's clothing. Cloudflare care about the "open internet" exactly as far as they can profit from it. Why does the "open internet" not allow this polity the right to block itself from that which it deems as harmful?
The power struggle of global corps and old world Countries are a fine spectacle for us, who have lost our placement in the food chain to the man-made giants.
They tried a variant of this in Australia for a short period of time before realising IP blocking accidentally takes down thousands of legitimate businesses on shared hosting.
> The law requires internet service providers to block reported piracy sites within 30 minutes. AGCOM insists that Cloudflare comply with these demands through its public DNS service, 1.1.1.1. When Cloudflare allegedly failed to do so, the regulator imposed a fine of over €14 million.
€14 million? What the hell is this desperate witch hunt on piracy lately?
> At the heart of the conflict is Italy’s ‘Piracy Shield,’ a system designed to combat illegal live streams of sports events, such as Serie A football matches. The law requires internet service providers to block reported piracy sites within 30 minutes. AGCOM insists that Cloudflare comply with these demands through its public DNS service, 1.1.1.1. When Cloudflare allegedly failed to do so, the regulator imposed a fine of over €14 million.
Doesn't EU have some kind of net neutrality act? Italy gov can ask DNS resolver to just block pirate sites?
Europe 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 clever, so ...
> The law requires internet service providers to block reported piracy sites within 30 minutes. AGCOM insists that Cloudflare comply with these demands through its public DNS service, 1.1.1.1. When Cloudflare allegedly failed to do so, the regulator imposed a fine of over €14 million.
Sports conglomerates and their lobbying should kindly fuck off.
If they want to sue a site the old fashioned web for IP infringement that's fine. But that 30 minute thing is absolute bullshit.
Cloudflare PR seems to have handled this badly (judging by the fast shift in HN tone). DNS censorship is wildly unpopular. This should have been one of the easier PR jobs in the tech world: they were handed free positive publicity on a silver platter.
Heck, HN expressly called on Cloudflare to take up this exact fight[0]; and now that they have, they've still, somehow, managed to turn most of HN against them.
Top-rated comment: "It's one of the rare cases where the sheer size and international influence of companies like Google and Cloudflare can actually do some good for the world by fighting back against such laws."
Italy's policy seems an abomination and Cloudflare seems to have a point from a commercial position. But that they do have this amount of leverage is a much bigger problem:
> Yet the core issue is infrastructural. For years, Europe has allowed vital parts of the internet to fall into the hands of American companies
Or, is the core infrastructural issue that for the past 20+ years Internet protocols have stalled, yielding capabilities almost exclusively to centralized (and apparently highly concentrated) commercial services.
What 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.
AGCOM 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.
29 comments
[ 4.8 ms ] story [ 40.8 ms ] threadhttps://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46555760 ("Cloudflare CEO on the Italy fines (twitter.com/eastdakota)"; 1104 comments)
https://xcancel.com/eastdakota/status/2009654937303896492
https://torrentfreak.com/italy-fines-cloudflare-e14-million-...
I don't even agree with what the Italian government did, but more companies need to do this instead of lobbying for or against laws. No one elected you. The loud voice and influence you wield because of success as a commercial entity does not entitle you a louder voice and power than the citizens of that country. Pull out, if the Italian people don't like the result, they can work on getting things changed. They didn't vote for @eastdakota
Same goes for apple, google, microsoft, signal, twitter, etc.. I fear what all these have in common is the parasitical oligarchy in the US where companies, CEOs and billionaires puppeting the government with the string for everyone to see (what will anyone do about it?), and it doesn't even register for a moment that there is anything abnormal or harmful about it.
In a democracy, the person who controls popular opinion is the ultimate ruler. That person is supposed to be other citizens as individuals.
ahem, he's from Utah duh bro
This captcha huckster has delusions of grandeur.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-05-17/concern-over-asic-int...
They didn’t repeal the law but instead worked out better ways of using the existing powers after a review.
https://www.infrastructure.gov.au/sites/default/files/austra...
€14 million? What the hell is this desperate witch hunt on piracy lately?
Doesn't EU have some kind of net neutrality act? Italy gov can ask DNS resolver to just block pirate sites?
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 clever, so ...
Sports conglomerates and their lobbying should kindly fuck off.
If they want to sue a site the old fashioned web for IP infringement that's fine. But that 30 minute thing is absolute bullshit.
Heck, HN expressly called on Cloudflare to take up this exact fight[0]; and now that they have, they've still, somehow, managed to turn most of HN against them.
How is that even possible?
[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43448112 ("Italy demands Google poison DNS under strict Piracy Shield law (arstechnica.com)"; 9 months ago, 175 comments)
Top-rated comment: "It's one of the rare cases where the sheer size and international influence of companies like Google and Cloudflare can actually do some good for the world by fighting back against such laws."
> Yet the core issue is infrastructural. For years, Europe has allowed vital parts of the internet to fall into the hands of American companies
Or, is the core infrastructural issue that for the past 20+ years Internet protocols have stalled, yielding capabilities almost exclusively to centralized (and apparently highly concentrated) commercial services.
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.
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.