Tech Companies Flag Piracy Blocking as Threat to the Open Internet & Digital Trade

Technology infrastructure companies including Amazon, Google, and Cloudflare, are warning the U.S. Government about the downsides of foreign piracy blocking measures. The coalition argues that anti-piracy initiatives, including those in France and Italy, disrupt international trade, increase costs for U.S. companies, and could lead to unintended censorship.

 Every year the office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR) publishes the National Trade Estimate Report on Foreign Trade Barriers.

The report is compiled based on input from key industry players. This includes submissions from copyright industry groups, such as the MPA, that frequently highlight piracy challenges.

Most rightsholders would like foreign countries to strengthen their online piracy efforts and policies, by implementing institutionalized piracy blocking schemes, for example. These measures are beneficial to many American companies, they argue.

In response to the USTR’s most recent request, the MPA and others presented site blocking as a solution. However, not all businesses are equally enthusiastic. Several large tech companies, united in the Internet Infrastructure Coalition (I2Coalition), signal piracy blocking initiatives as a potential threat.

I2Coalition

I2Coalition represents major companies such as Amazon and Google, but also many smaller outfits including hosting providers, VPNs, and domain name services. In the past, the group urged the USTR to recognize that its members are neutral intermediaries when it comes to piracy.

A few days ago, I2Coalition sent its latest submission for the Trade Barriers report, mentioning piracy issues once again. This time, however, the group highlights concerns with overbroad blocking efforts, such as court orders and government-imposed blocking measures.

“Such restrictions, often introduced under the guise of protecting national interests or preventing illegal content, fundamentally threaten the free and open nature of the Internet,” I2Coalition writes.

These blockades exist in various forms and not all are linked to piracy. The coalition mentions efforts in Myanmar, Iran, and Russia that restrict citizens’ access to ‘inappropriate’ information. Piracy blocking efforts in France, Italy, and India are prominently mentioned too.

Piracy Blocks Expand

I2Coalition notes that anti-piracy blockades initially only targeted residential ISPs, which were ordered to restrict consumer access to infringing sites. More recently, however, other intermediaries such as DNS providers, CDNs, and VPNs have been required to play a role.

These expansions are particularly concerning since any errors have broader consequences. A seemingly straightforward blocking order can affect systems that are used by pirate sites, as well as many legitimate parties.

“These blocking regimes often lack adequate controls or oversight by independent parties, resulting in significant amounts of collateral blocking of untargeted content with no opportunity for redress,” the coalition writes.

The coalition highlights that this has already led to mistakes, where regular businesses were adversely impacted by erroneous blocking requirements.

“There have been numerous examples, for instance, of ISPs blocking the IP addresses of cloud infrastructure in order to block a single website, even though the same IP address is used to access hundreds, thousands, or even tens of thousands of unrelated websites.”

Italy

The letter specifically mentions Italy’s Piracy Shield, which caused a lot of controversy in recent months. This includes an incident where a blocked Cloudflare IP-address rendered many legitimate websites inaccessible. More recently, the anti-piracy system blocked access to Google Drive.

The legislation that supports Piracy Shield requires a variety of online services to comply with blocking orders that are issued without judicial review. These services have 30 minutes to act, which leaves little room for redress. As a result, mistakes are virtually unavoidable, I2Coalition argues.

“The failure to include controls on blocking has resulted in numerous instances of blocking of large cloud providers that service significant numbers of websites, thereby causing users to lose access to large numbers of global websites with no connection to piracy.”

Instead of taking a step back to implement extra safeguards, the authorities have expanded Piracy Shield’s scope, requiring DNS services and VPNs to play a role too. This only exacerbates the problem, the coalition says, noting that some VPNs have decided to shut down their Italian servers.

“The system has led not only to frustrations amongst users and cloud providers, but has also led some VPN providers to stop operating in Italy due to the burdensome requirements of the Piracy Shield.”

France

The coalition also mentions a recent blocking development in France, where a local court updated an existing blocking order. In addition to ISPs, the court ordered Google, Cloudflare, and Cisco to poison their DNS to make pirate sites inaccessible.

The tech companies presented a list of concerns and caveats, but none of those convinced the court to see things differently.

“The court ordered the blocking despite the entry of evidence in the case that the impact on piracy would be minimal, that it might require the sites to be blocked globally, and that it would require companies to build new technology on top of the global DNS systems that make up the Internet in order to comply.”

The court provided no room to delay the blocking measures pending an appeal. A refusal to comply, would simply result in penalties. Faced with this choice, OpenDNS decided to suspend its service in France instead.

USTR Can Help

In closing, I2Coalition stresses that these types of blocking measures are not only imperfect and overly restrictive, they also come at considerable technical cost, which is a clear trade barrier. The USTR should keep these harms in mind.

While blocking may be needed, the measures and procedures used should be proportional, with appropriate checks and balances and room for due process. The splintered blocking systems that are implemented today, will only “Balkanize” the Internet, they argue.

“We urge USTR to recognize the harm these restrictions can cause, not only to the global flow of information but also to trade and innovation,” I2Coalition writes.

“To counter these challenges, USTR should work with other nations to facilitate adherence to international norms that prioritize an open and secure Internet. This collaboration can help reduce the impact of site-blocking regimes, support cross-border digital trade, and prevent the Balkanization of the global Internet.”

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A copy of the Internet Infrastructure Coalition’s submission for the USTR’s 2025 National Trade Estimate Report on Foreign Trade Barriers is available here (pdf)

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