REGULATORY · COMPETITIVE · EU
Cloudflare appeals AGCOM fine over Piracy Shield
Change
On March 8, 2026, Cloudflare appealed a 14.2 million-euro fine issued by Italy’s communications regulator AGCOM for refusing to disable DNS resolution and routing on its 1.1.1.1 DNS resolver under the Piracy Shield law.
Why it matters
AGCOM issued a €14.2 million penalty in January 2026 citing failure to disable DNS resolution and routing for domain names and IP addresses reported by copyright holders. Cloudflare resisted a blocking order received in February 2025 and declined to register for Piracy Shield before pursuing a legal challenge. Cloudflare asserted that fines should be capped at €140,000 or 2 percent of Italian earnings and said AGCOM calculated the penalty using global revenue. Piracy Shield requires network operators to block reported domain names and IP addresses within 30 minutes of receiving a copyright notification.
Implications
- · Network operators must disable DNS resolution and routing for reported domain names and IP addresses within 30 minutes of a copyright notification.
- · AGCOM can assess monetary penalties for noncompliance and, in this instance, calculated the fine using global revenue rather than Italian earnings.
- · Deploying the mandated DNS filtering can increase latency and degrade DNS resolution for sites not subject to the dispute.
Who is affected
- · DNS resolver operators
- · Network operators and internet service providers
- · Legal and compliance teams at internet infrastructure firms
Source
Topics
World & Politics Policy & Regulation Law & Public Safety Regulatory Actions Technology & Innovation Cloud & Data