The CEO of the networking company Cloudflare is lashing out at Italy in response to regulatory antipiracy fines, and Cloudflare is threatening to pull out of the country and its 2026 Winter Olympics.
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Italy announced on Jan. 8 that it had issued a fine of 14.2 million euros (approximately $16.5 million) against Cloudflare for failing to block access to pirated content. Soon after that, Cloudflare’s CEO Matthew Prince took to X to call out the fines, describing Cloudflare’s decision not to comply as a fight over censorship. Prince said that complying with Italy’s demands under its Piracy Shield policies would affect content globally.
Italy’s Piracy Shield is a program that is implemented by the country’s telecommunications regulator AGCOM. In order to cut down on piracy in the country, such as hosting illegal streams of sporting events, the program allows IP holders to report content violations to a rapid-response automated system. However, some have complained that the 30-minute window given is not enough time for ISPs to properly vet complains, and is resulting in legitimate, non-pirated content being blocked as well.
“In other words, Italy insists a shadowy, European media cabal should be able to dictate what is and is not allowed online,” Prince said.
Yesterday a quasi-judicial body in Italy fined @Cloudflare $17 million for failing to go along with their scheme to censor the Internet. The scheme, which even the EU has called concerning, required us within a mere 30 minutes of notification to fully censor from the Internet any… pic.twitter.com/qZf9UKEAY5
— Matthew Prince 🌥 (@eastdakota) January 9, 2026
In his posts, Prince specifically mentioned the 30-minute timeframe that Italy requires for Cloudflare to disable access to suspected piracy traffic.
“We block pirate streams every time we find one,” he wrote. “We hate them.” But, he said, “we can’t put in place a system where a shadowy cabal can require us to remove GLOBALLY anything they don’t like on the internet within 30 minutes. That’s insane.”
Some of the proponents of Italy’s piracy rules are soccer teams that want to prevent the illegal streaming of their matches.
Prince went on to list steps his company might take, including pulling its cybersecurity service from the 2026 Milano Cortina Winter Olympics, removing Cloudflare servers from Italian cities and holding off on any plans to invest in the country. Prince also suggested he would get US government leaders involved, tagging Vice President JD Vance in his post. Prince also reposted a message addressed to the Italian prime minister, along with an article about Italy’s actions.
A representative for Cloudflare responded to a request for comment but did not offer a statement or comment from the company.
The Winter Olympics, scheduled to take place between Feb. 6 and Feb. 22 at sites across Lombardy and Northeast Italy, are a sensitive subject when it comes to cybersecurity, considering the potential that many may use VPN technology to view broadcasts of the event.
