Cloudflare Italy Piracy Shield Fine: Tech Giant Fights €14.2M Penalty
Italy has fined Cloudflare €14.2 million for refusing to block pirate sites via its DNS service. The tech giant is fighting back, threatening to pull servers from the country.
Italy's regulatory hammer just came down on the backbone of the internet. Yesterday, the Italian communications authority, AGCOM, announced a staggering 14.2 million euro fine against Cloudflare. The penalty stems from the company's refusal to block access to pirate sites through its popular 1.1.1.1 DNS service.
The Controversy Behind the Cloudflare Italy Piracy Shield Fine 2025
The fine was issued under Italy's controversial Piracy Shield law, which mandates that internet infrastructure providers disable resolution for domains flagged by copyright holders. According to AGCOM, Cloudflare failed to comply with a blocking order issued in February 2025. While the law allows for fines up to 2% of a company's annual turnover, the agency opted for a 1% penalty in this instance.
Cloudflare isn't backing down. The company argues that implementing such filters on its 200 billion daily requests would cause significant latency and potentially break DNS resolution for legitimate sites. They've labeled the requirement as technically unsound and a threat to global internet performance.
Cloudflare stated it will fight the penalty and has even threatened to remove all of its servers from Italian cities if the government continues this enforcement path.
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