News: 0179987876

  ARM Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day, but set fire to him and he's warm for the rest of his life (Terry Pratchett, Jingo)

Cloudflare Tells US Govt That Foreign Site Blocking Efforts Are Digital Trade Barriers (torrentfreak.com)

(Thursday November 06, 2025 @10:30PM (BeauHD) from the PSA dept.)


An anonymous reader quotes a report from TorrentFreak:

> In a submission for the [1]2026 National Trade Estimate Report (PDF), Cloudflare warns the U.S. government that site blocking efforts [2]cause widespread disruption to legitimate services . The complaint points to Italy's automated [3]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.



[1] https://torrentfreak.com/images/USTR-NTE-Cloudflare-2026.pdf

[2] https://torrentfreak.com/cloudflare-tells-u-s-govt-that-foreign-site-blocking-efforts-are-digital-trade-barriers/

[3] https://yro.slashdot.org/story/25/04/03/2257221/massive-expansion-of-italys-piracy-shield-underway



Or roll out IPv6 (Score:3)

by xack ( 5304745 )

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

Re: (Score:2)

by Kisai ( 213879 )

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

The USA is just a huge psych ward at this point (Score:3)

by fjorder ( 5219645 )

so best just to quarantine it in terms of policy

Railing against trade barriers is so 20th century (Score:2)

by tyroxy ( 1291304 )

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 (Score:2)

by Big Hairy Gorilla ( 9839972 )

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 ... (Score:3)

by PPH ( 736903 )

... because their JavaScript tools are pulling in [1]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.

[1] https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/phantomraven-attack-floods-npm-with-credential-stealing-packages/

Positive Globalism .. the only way forward (Score:2)

by backslashdot ( 95548 )

I agree that nations are a necessary inconvenience at this time since some people's cultures are whack (some examples: people from India need improvements in food hygiene -- a healthy fear of bacteria is needed, muslims need anger management and education to respect women's choices, blacks need to control their emotions and be more considerate of others, whites need to stop being racist, asians need to stop being hive-minded and come up with their own inventions etc.) , but eventually we need to be fully gl

The internet is broken (Score:2)

by RossCWilliams ( 5513152 )

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.

Pilfering Treasury property is particularly dangerous: big thieves are
ruthless in punishing little thieves.
-- Diogenes