Cloudflare Says Winter Olympics Cybersecurity Is at Risk in Spat With Italian Regulators

The CEO of networking company Cloudflare is lashing out at Italy in response to anti-piracy regulatory fines, threatening to pull out of the country and potentially the 2026 Winter Olympics.

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Italy announced on January 8 that it had fined Cloudflare 14.2 million euros (about $16.5 million) for failing to block access to pirated content. Shortly after, Cloudflare CEO Matthew Prince took to X to call for the fines, describing Cloudflare’s decision not to comply as a fight against censorship. Prince said complying with Italy’s requirements as part of its piracy protection policy would affect content globally.

Italy’s Piracy Shield is a program implemented by the country’s telecommunications regulator, AGCOM. To reduce piracy in the country, such as hosting illegal streams of sporting events, the program allows intellectual property owners to report content violations to an automated, rapid response system. However, some have complained that the 30-minute time limit given is not enough to allow ISPs to properly investigate complaints and also results in the blocking of legitimate, non-pirated content.

“In other words, Italy insists that a shadowy European media cabal should be able to dictate what is and is not allowed online,” Prince said.

In his messages, Prince specifically mentioned the 30-minute delay required by Italy for Cloudflare to disable access to traffic suspected of hacking.

“We block pirate streams every time we find one,” he wrote. “We hate them.” But, he said, “we can’t have a system in place where a dark cabal can force us to take down GLOBALLY everything they don’t like on the Internet within 30 minutes.” This is insane. »

Some of the supporters of Italy’s anti-piracy rules are soccer teams who want to prevent their matches from being broadcast illegally.

Prince then listed steps his company could take, including withdrawing its cybersecurity service from the 2026 Milan Cortina Winter Olympics, removing Cloudflare servers from Italian cities and postponing any investment plans in the country. Prince also suggested he would involve the leadership of the U.S. government, appointing Vice President J.D. Vance to his position. Prince also reposted a message to the Italian Prime Minister, along with an article about Italy’s actions.

The Winter Olympics, scheduled to take place between February 6 and 22 at venues in Lombardy and northeastern Italy, are a sensitive topic when it comes to cybersecurity, given the potential for many people. use VPN technology to view broadcasts of the event.

Door is open to deal, says Cloudflare

In an interview with CNET, a Cloudflare representative said that even though Italy’s fine represents more than the company’s total revenue in the country, Cloudflare is still open to a deal to avoid saying aarrivedderci in the country.

“We’re still evaluating and we’re still open to finding a solution,” said Alyssa Starzak, Cloudflare’s deputy general counsel and global head of policy. “That would be a better solution. We hope we can have discussions to reach a more reasonable outcome.”

Starzak said the company has published information and conducted outreach to Italian stakeholders on how Cloudflare is working to combat unauthorized streaming. But Italian law, she says, leaves no room for negotiation or nuance.

“It’s really a situation of, ‘You have to do what we say,’” she said.