Cloudflare CEO: Football Piracy Blocks Will Claim Lives

Cloudflare CEO Matthew Prince warned that LaLiga's ISP blocking campaign -- intended to stop football piracy -- has caused widespread collateral damage by blocking millions of unrelated websites, including emergency services, in Spain. He called the strategy 'bonkers' and expressed fear that lives could be lost due to the overblocking. TorrentFreak reports: Posting to X last week, Prince asked if anyone wanted any general feedback, declaring that he felt 'in an especially truthful mood.' The first response contained direct questions about the LaLiga controversy, the blame for which LaLiga places squarely on the shoulders of Cloudflare. For the first time since Cloudflare legal action failed to end LaLiga's blocking campaign, Prince weighed in with his assessment of the current situation and where he believes it's inevitably heading.

'A huge percentage of the Internet sits behind us, including small businesses and emergency resources in Spain,' Prince explained. 'The strategy of blocking broadly through ISPs based on IPs is bonkers because so much content, including emergency services content, can be behind any IP. The collateral damage is vast and is hurting Spanish citizens from accessing critical resources,' he added.

Despite LaLiga's unshakable claims to the contrary, Prince believes that it's not a case of 'if' disaster strikes, it's 'when.' 'It's only a matter of time before a Spanish citizen can't access a life-saving emergency resource because the rights holder in a football match refuses to send a limited request to block one resource versus a broad request to block a whole swath of the Internet,' Prince warned. 'When that unfortunately and inevitably happens and harms lives, I'm confident policy makers and courts in Spain and elsewhere will make the right policy decision. Until then, it'll be up to users to make politicians clear on the risk. I pray no one dies.'

The suggestion that LaLiga's demands were too broad, doesn't mean that Cloudflare is refusing to help, Prince suggested. On the contrary, there's a process available, LaLiga just needs to use it. 'We've always been happy and willing to work with rights holders in conjunction with judicial bodies to protect their content. We have a clear process that works around the world to do that,' Prince explained.

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