Cloudflare Tells US Govt That Foreign Site Blocking Efforts Are Digital Trade Barriers

An anonymous reader quotes a report from TorrentFreak: In a submission for the 2026 National Trade Estimate Report (PDF), Cloudflare warns the U.S. government that site blocking efforts cause widespread disruption to legitimate services. The complaint points to Italy's automated Piracy Shield system, which reportedly blocked "tens of thousands" of legitimate sites. Meanwhile, overbroad IP address blocks in Spain and new automated blocking proposals in France are serious concerns that harm U.S. business interests, Cloudflare reports. [...]

Cloudflare urges the USTR to take these concerns into account for its upcoming National Trade Estimate Report. Ideally, it wants these trade barriers to be dismantled. These calls run counter to requests from rightsholders, who urge the USTR to ensure that more foreign countries implement blocking measures. With potential site-blocking legislation being considered in U.S. Congress, that may impact local lobbying efforts as well. If and how the USTR will address these concerns will become clearer early next year, when the 2026 National Trade Estimate Report is expected to be published.

Or roll out IPv6

[xack]

So one bad website can't take out huge amounts of sites behind CGNAT. Problem solved.

Re:

[Kisai]

Cloudflare could, y'know, stop protecting piracy sites then.

Re:

[AmiMoJo]

That wouldn't help with Cloudflare and similar CDNs. DNS just doesn't propagate fast enough to work with dynamic caching.

It's better we don't try to come up with a technical fix for what is a legal problem anyway. The issue is site blocking on copyright grounds, initiated by private corporations.

The USA is just a huge psych ward at this point

[fjorder]

so best just to quarantine it in terms of policy

Railing against trade barriers is so 20th century

[tyroxy]

Now it's sanctions, sanctions and sanctions, and no one seems to remember "free trade" was the cudgel that the US used to dominate (even bankrupt) other, weaker states' economies. It's hard to imagine that a US spokesdroid could stand up and advocate free trade with a straight face. Probably that's a failure of imagination, as such flip-flops were anticipated so presciently in Orwell's 1984.

Makes sense

[Big Hairy Gorilla]

Stasis favours the incumbents therefore, when the new regime takes power, they must cull the herd, they must reallocate resources to their ideological allies. It's in the change of position that opportunity and profits are to be made.

Donny to Vance: go to Europe and knock everything of the table.

CloudFlare just butt-hurt ...

[PPH]

... because their JavaScript tools are pulling in compromised [bleepingcomputer.com] packages. And they are getting caught/blocked by various network operators. Including my ISP. But then they aren't "foreign", so running to the Trump administration crying isn't likely to do any good.

The internet is broken

[RossCWilliams]

And the entire scheme of intellectual property is a house of cards. The fault lines are starting to show and the whole structure will eventually break into pieces.

Re:

[Fly Swatter]

That would be on your employer for putting your work computer behind a Cloudflare front. Why does the work computer need to be so publicly visible? And why do you need a vpn for accessing work?

-that's the smell of fishy.