The Italian Communications Authority (AGCOM) has imposed a €14 million fine on Cloudflare after it failed to comply with an administrative order to block access to pirated content via the “Piracy Shield” platform. AGCOM reached the decision on 29 December 2025 and made the public announcement on Thursday.
Under Italian law, DNS providers like Cloudflare are required to disable DNS resolution and network traffic routing to IP addresses reported as hosting illegal content. AGCOM found that Cloudflare had failed to adopt the necessary technological or organizational measures to make pirated works unavailable, despite an initial enforcement resolution issued in February 2025.
This ruling by AGCOM will make other providers sit up and take notice that they too must block piracy websites if they want to avoid a fine. This affects VPNs, public DNS providers, and search engines, regardless of their physical location.
The fine against Cloudflare represents 1% of its global turnover. Under the country’s law, non-compliance regarding copyright protection can result in fines up to 2% of a company’s annual revenue. This is one of the first and largest financial penalties imposed by Italy in the digital copyright sector, setting a precedent for future cases. AGCOM also noted that a very large percentage of blocked illegal sites are using Cloudflare’s services to distribute protected works.
Italy’s Piracy Shield launched in February 2024 and has disabled over 65,000 Fully Qualified Domain Names (FQDNs) and around 14,000 IP addresses. AGCOM wants to send a message to intermediaries that they can’t remain passive when their infrastructure is utilized for large-scale copyright infringement.
Commissioner Elisa Giomi was the sole vote against the fine, but the Board of Directors passed the measure with a majority. Cloudflare can appeal the resolution through the Italian administrative court system (TAR Lazio).