Cloudlflare’s CEO has threatened to withdraw funding from the Milan-Cortina Olympics following a fine by Italy’s communications watchdog.
Published January 10, 2026
US internet company Cloudflare has threatened to suspend its services in Italy, including the 2026 Milan-Cortina Winter Olympics, after being fined 14 million euros (about $16 million) for failing to address online copyright infringement.
Agcom, Italy’s independent communications watchdog, on Thursday announced fines for “continued violations of anti-piracy laws” by failing to disable content flagged by its Piracy Shield system.
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The system allows rights holders of live streaming events to report pirated content through an automated platform, and providers are required to block the content within 30 minutes.
In a lengthy post on X late Friday, Cloudflare CEO Matthew Prince denounced this as a “plan to censor the internet.”
He said the system “has no judicial oversight”, no appeals process or transparency, and requires a service that blocks content not just in Italy but globally.
Cloudflare has already launched a legal challenge to the plan and plans to fight the fine, calling it “unreasonable.”
He also said his company was considering “discontinuing millions of dollars in free cybersecurity services that it is providing in conjunction with the upcoming Milan-Cortina Olympics.”
Prince said he would discuss the issue with U.S. officials in Washington, D.C., next week before heading to Lausanne to discuss the issue with the International Olympic Committee (IOC), which is hosting the Feb. 6-22 Winter Olympics in northern Italy.
He also warned that the company could discontinue free cybersecurity services for users based in Italy, remove all servers from Italian cities and halt investment plans in the country.
Cloudflare is a platform that provides services such as website and application security, traffic management, and optimization.
It claims to control around 20% of the world’s internet traffic.
According to Agcom, at least 65,000 fully qualified domain names (FQDNs) and approximately 14,000 IP addresses have been disabled since Piracy Shield was introduced in February 2024.
