Business Report Urges Cloudflare to Terminate Accounts of Pirate Sites - Kiwi's slip-and-slide effect

Report Urges Cloudflare to Terminate Accounts of Pirate Sites * TorrentFreak

Brand protection company Corsearch shows that half of all the pirate sites it flagged use Cloudflare's services.

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Report Urges Cloudflare to Terminate Accounts of Pirate Sites * Torre…

archived 21 Jan 2023 15:57:05 UTC

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by Ernesto Van der Sar

A new whitepaper released by brand protection company Corsearch shows that half of all the pirate sites it flagged use Cloudflare's services. The Internet infrastructure company clearly stands out and should do more to address the issue, the report suggests. Banning domains that are removed or demoted by Google could be a good start, Corsearch notes.

Popular Internet infrastructure service Cloudflare has come under a lot of pressure from copyright holders in recent years.

The company offers its services to millions of sites. This includes multinationals, governments, but also some of the world’s leading pirate sites.

These sites have proven to be quite a headache for the San Francisco-based tech company. Ideally, however, the company prefers not to be the arbiter of what content is allowed and what is not.

The Curation Conundrum​

The company reiterated its position a few months ago. To shield itself from escalating removal demands, including plain censorship, Cloudflare said it would no longer terminate customers without a court order.

Just days after taking this hardened approach, Cloudflare reversed its position. Citing an immediate threat to human life, CEO Matthew Prince justified blocking access to the controversial Kiwi Farms site.

There’s no question that death threats are in a league of their own, but copyright holders would also like to see more cooperation from Cloudflare. This call is backed by a recent report from brand protection company Corsearch.

Corsearch is no stranger to copyright issues. The company works with several of the largest rightsholders and its subsidiary Incopro has produced a wealth of piracy research, some in collaboration with governments. In this case, the research focuses on Cloudflare.

Whirepaper: Cloudflare & Pirate Sites​

The overall tenor of the whitepaper is that when compared to other intermediaries, Cloudflare appears to be linked to a relatively high percentage of torrent sites. Of all the sites flagged by Corsearch, which are all demoted by Google as well, half use Cloudflare’s CDN service.

“Cloudflare is not the host of these websites. However, the host is not readily identifiable and Cloudflare is most closely associated with 49% of websites notified for delisting by Corsearch,” the report notes.



There’s no denying that Cloudflare stands out but it should be noted that the company is not a hosting provider, like the others on the list. In addition to Cloudflare, these pirate sites may use Amazon or Google’s services as well, even though that’s not immediately visible.

Besides pirate sites, the report also links Cloudflare to trademarking. Again, it is the most common online intermediary for these outlets.

Technically, Cloudflare can’t take these sites offline, as they are hosted elsewhere. However, Corsearch believes that the company could and should do more to tackle the piracy problem. And it has some ideas on where to start.

“Cloudflare is uniquely positioned to do more to protect rights holders and substantially to suppress the scourge of online piracy and counterfeiting,” the report reads.

“We are asking Cloudflare to do more to support rights owners by voluntarily implementing certain measures. These measures are reasonable, proportionate and if adopted by Cloudflare will have a significant impact.”

Recommendations​

Corsearch doesn’t have just one, but a whole list of suggestions for the CDN provider. Most of these boil down to terminating services to sites that others deem to be infringing. Those include the following;

– Cloudflare should terminate accounts of sites that are demoted or deindexed by Google search.

– Cloudflare should withdraw services to any site that’s deemed unlawful by a recognized law enforcement body or the ‘Infringing Website List’ (IWL).

– Cloudflare should ban sites that are on the US Trade Representative’s annual notorious markets list.

– Cloudflare should stop working with sites that are added to the European Union’s Counterfeit and Piracy Watchlist.

What Can Go Wrong?​

While it’s understandable that rightsholders want Cloudflare to do more, these suggestions are not without issues of their own. The IWL, for example, is private and can’t be scrutinized by the public. As reported recently, this includes domains of organizations such as GitHub, Blogspot, and a Portuguese University.

The USTR’s Notorious Market lists and the EU’s Piracy Watchlist also have various entries that deserve some nuance. These include the Chinese Wechat, which has over a billion users, as well as Russia’s largest social media platform VK.

Up until recently, USTR even listed Amazon’s foreign online stores as “notorious markets”. Does that mean that these shouldn’t be allowed to operate?

Given Cloudflare’s previous comments, it seems unlikely that the company will start banning accounts left and right. That being said, Corsearch also has some other suggestions that may be more realistic.

The report proposes a robust “Know-Your-Client” policy, for example. In addition, it calls for a comprehensive transparency report where Cloudflare would disclose which domain names are flagged by rightsholders and how often.

 

[Looney Troons]

FUCKING
LOL
Imagine thinking pirating linkin park is the equivalent of stealing a car also what i am i supposed to do if my country decides to ban huniepop because its Morally questionable.

pink triangle and lack of reading comprehension checks out

 

[Sugriva]

I hope you learned your lesson, Matthew. Do not negotiate with trannies.

 

[Toolbox]

Corporate lawyers and lobbyists are in no way hindered if you and I decide not to talk about this on a website.

Even they aren't going to have the resources they did when we're in a recession that's only gonna keep getting worse.

Of course protecting "muh sacred copyright law" is more important than refusing service to murderous terrorist groups and animal sadists.
View attachment 4309220

I used to be just wanting copyright's extension to 100+ years reversed but at this point I'd be fine with the entire system, including the patent system being torn entirely apart just to see corporate lawyers seethe and all the useless jobs in the law trolling industry evaporate.

 

[AnotherPleb]

Here we are, some 40 years later - probably more, and people are still banging their dicks against the wall to figure out how to solve the “piracy issue”. Handle it the exact same way you would when an ethnic minorities loot physical stores run by mom and pop, and turn the blind eye to it because “it happens”.

Piracy, like any form of thievery, are never going away. Ever. Instead of witch-hunting those who pirate, incentivize potential and current customers. Why is this concept so difficult?

Making things nicer for the customers costs money. Suing Grannie Agnes into the dirt can make them a fraction of a penny.

Which do you think they're going to choose?

 

[Watcher]

The biggest issue with Cloudflare is there aren't enough alternatives to it. It's existed in a monopoly of its own creation that nobody bothers to compete with.

 

[Corpun]

Just like the actual Wild West, the Internet is being gobbled up piecemeal by conglomerates until anything that shows character or individualism is dead and buried. It's been a long time coming but within a decade the Internet is going to be thoroughly scrubbed of anything considered unsanitary whether that be websites to watch anime for free, forums that don't follow 'the rules', or anything else.

 

[Manul Otocolobus]

I hope Matthew Prince is enjoying the taste of that girldick.

 

[The Ugly One]

Even they aren't going to have the resources they did when we're in a recession that's only gonna keep getting worse.

The economy could contract to Great Depression levels of poverty, and the IP protection industry will still have, collectively, many orders of magnitude more resources than the troon brigade did.

 

[Jack Awful]

Cloudflare gets bullied into stupid shit but still provides protection for pedo and zoophile sites.

They actively host monkey torture sites, but no one in the media seems to care.
Interesting.

 

[The Ugly One]

They actively host monkey torture sites, but no one in the media seems to care.
Interesting.

IMMINENT THREAT TO LOSS OF MONKEY LIFE seems like a good reason to cease services!

 

[Haramburger]

Plus they won't go after the major pirate groups anyway. They'll go after poor little Virginia Sue who downloaded a pirated copy of the latest The Sims expansion so she could play with her middle class friends.

Exactly the kind of bitch that needs to PAY.

I could see that being the spark that sends our whole society off the rails because once all the wingnuts lose their online venting places they might start living out their anger irl.

I want to take this opportunity to thank all of you for listening to my frequent Two Minutes of Hate and conspiracy theories, it helps. Or to spin it another way, give me 100+ stickers or the girl dies.

 

[Zryachy]

Fucking called it, that's what you get for being cuckolds panderong to mutilated eunuchs.
Tongue my dog's anus you fuckers, you've brought this on yourselves.

 

[Dysnomia]

The problem with "taking down online piracy" is that it never stops at just that. They always use the laws as an excuse to go too far. The same laws would quickly be used to take down places like KiwiFarms because we host images and documents that put them in a bad light.

Plus they won't go after the major pirate groups anyway. They'll go after poor little Virginia Sue who downloaded a pirated copy of the latest The Sims expansion so she could play with her middle class friends.

Reminds me of when Lars Ulrich made an ass out of himself over Napster. Never mind that the music industry's refusal to digitize while the iron was hot had a hand in some of the file sharing going on.

You go after the little guys because they are easy to intimidate and make examples of. It doesn't stop piracy. It just makes you look like you are kinda trying to do something.

But I haven't liked where the internet is headed for a long time now. It's too bad that kids today only know TikTok and Instagram. There used to be a whole universe out there to explore. Now corporations have it set up so you are trapped in a sanitized box without even knowing it. Only people who were around on the internet longer than the social media explosion remember that it was different.

But thank God all those ISIS beheading and monkey torture websites are still up and thriving.
Thanks, Cloudflare .

Same with Twitter having their heads in the sand over CP and terrorist hives. Gotta make sure no magenta haired men in dresses are being misgendered first. That's priority number 1. Did Musk even change any of that? You can't really trust any billionaire to make much of a difference.

 

[pikachudidnothingwrong]

And here we gooooooo.. Told you but you just couldn't handle 5 minutes of bad troon press. Now pandora's box is open!

 

[Airbrushed Van Art]

Notorious pirating websites?! How awful! Disgusting!!

Which websites? Where?!

 

[SIMIΔN]

Is there any chance this'll cause CF to welcome back 8chan and KF?

BTW, this isn't the first time troons have been used as corporate trojan horses. For example Corey Ehmke's Contributor Covenant that made it easy to unperson principled open source people.

 

[Toolbox]

Notorious pirating websites?! How awful! Disgusting!!

Which websites? Where?!

Do not look at any of the websites linked through the github megathread you can find in r/piracy's megathread! Illegal, immoral, and I will sue you!

 

[Chaos Theorist]

Is there any chance this'll cause CF to welcome back 8chan and KF?

BTW, this isn't the first time troons have been used as corporate trojan horses. For example Corey Ehmke's Contributor Covenant that made it easy to unperson principled open source people.

https://www.contributor-covenant.org/version/2/1/code_of_conduct/

 

[Toolbox]

https://www.contributor-covenant.org/version/2/1/code_of_conduct/

How exactly do you call it "open source" if there's gatekeeping?

 

[veritarded]

there’s no way they didn’t see this coming. i’s sure matthew prince’s decision to drop the farms was at least in part influenced by mike janke, but the ESG scoring has companies by the balls and it seems that so far this year they’ve been under more pressure.

a question i’ve seen commonly asked is “it’s just a loud but small group of freaks, why would such a large company cave to them?”. the future for businesses both large and small is very bleak; making the wrong decision could very well lead to your business’ social credit score dropping and leaving you at a disadvantage, and if you’re unfortunate enough, leave you broke and unable to sustain your business.

the shills will tell you that investors/shareholders heavily take ESG into consideration, which is true for lenders and large investors, but the average person just cares about green line go up. although this is the case, having a large shareholder divest from a company naturally causes smaller shareholders to panic sell.

we’ve reached a point where not only businesses of all size are given a social credit score, but INDIVIDUALS are now subject to them too. this social credit score is expected to be implemented into hiring processes. we may not yet be at the point where you’re denied housing or a loan due to your score, but we’re flying down that path, especially with the climate change (fake and gay) movement that seems to be very quickly seeping into everyday conversations and discourse. there will soon come a time where you may lose your job because you’re politically incorrect/your personal lifestyle is deemed “unsustainable”.

the sustainability shit in particular makes my fucking blood boil. we’re living in a time where people who live normal lifestyles are being shamed, ostracized, and told to dO bEtTeR. being NORMAL and SANE is bad now. humans have been eating meat since the beginning of time. it’s natural (just look at vegans, mentally and physically unwell). humans carelessly drive gas cars because they have places to be and don’t sit in the house and browse reddit all day. humans are naturally critical of/are opposed to certain groups or ideals. humans want to live on a spacious land instead of paying 4k a month to live in a pod. if you listen to your instincts and live the way humans have for centuries you are deemed an evil, selfish, unemployable, irredeemable chud.

it’s genuinely worrying that companies are going in full swing to raise their ESG scores. either i haven’t been paying close attention, or the climate fearmongering has increased exponentially in the past few months. i’ve seen a significant uptick in climate change related advertisements and PSAs recently, as well as services offering to improve businesses’ ESG rating. can’t go a day without seeing some ad about XYZ company’s efforts to cut down their emissions, or a photo of some sad looking animal on the other side of the fucking planet with a caption about how i, veritarded, am responsible for its suffering because i drive a gas car or whatever. I DONT GIVE A FUCK!!!!!!! I LIKE DRIVING MY CAR FUCK OFF!!!!!

i miss when climate change was referred to as global warming, and the proposed solution was to plant a tree or something. not anymore though, the government can’t tax trees.

i hope we’re not at the point of no return just yet and that people realize the truth of ESG scoring and reject it, but the amount of influence it has over the world economy isn’t possible to reverse by just ignoring it. its like telling chinese citizens to just disregard their social credit system and live their lives.

small business can’t escape it, and neither can matthew prince. cloudflare isn’t in a position to tell these screeching eunuchs to fuck off, that’d be bad for their ESG score. can’t have that! matthew prince tried that once and it resulted in a weak retraction only days later… on a fucking holiday.

drooling retards like keffals will take credit for cloudflare dropping the farms, and not even consider the possibility that the decision was made in a boardroom by a group of crusty old men who only see them as a means to an end: control of the Internet and suppression of information/communication by those they deem threats to their agenda.

people like keffals and other internet addicted troons don’t understand that all they are is useful idiots that’ll be discarded once their purpose is up. we ALL knew that cloudflare dropping kiwi farms was a slippery slope meant to make it easier for the powers that be to suppress and control the spread of information. it’s called foresight, an ability that’s unheard of to the groups of useful idiots that only understand instant gratification.

i’m under the belief that 60-70% of the human population aren’t truly capable of thinking. they’re not smart but they’re not necessarily retarded either- just people who are only capable of making decisions based on social/personal influence, do what they’re told without question, and cannot think critically. these are the people ultimately marching everyone towards our collective enslavement and reliance on authority. these are the type of people who will adopt a belief just because it appeals to their emotion or gives them dopamine hits. these are the type of people who will celebrate ISPs dropping a website that offends them. they truly cannot consider the consequences or implications of the beliefs they hold or the actions they support, and they will be in genuine shock once they’re next up on the chopping block.

so now we all just sit back and watch the Internet fall apart and be swallowed whole by government and corporations. try as you might to warn other people, but your words will be disregarded the second they see a manipulative article about evil hate sites that appeals to their emotion. guess we gotta just ride it out and watch the shitshow

that being said, i think @Null is owed a few apologies