Italy’s controversial Piracy Shield scheme is “back in action” and once again, the intent is to protect the rightsholder industry’s highly lucrative business of streaming football matches – with little if any regard toward the innocent victims.
Instead, Italy’s AGCOM communications regulator is using Piracy Shield as a blunt weapon. The latest target is Google and its Public DNS (domain name system).
A court order has been issued ordering Google to start “poisoning” or “spoofing” its DNS servers, in order to block a large number of sites, including those that enable illegal streaming of the top-tier football league, Serie A.
The effect is that of blocking an entire domain and catching any number of sites unrelated to a dragnet-style policing of the internet for “piracy.”
The technique – although used by the authorities in this case – is available “by the grace of malicious actors”: they devised it to “spoof” or reroute, via tampering with DNS records, a correct to a fake IP address – i.e., sending users to the wrong site.
Google promotes its public DNS service as speeding up browser experience, while improving security – and, getting “the results you expect with absolutely no redirection.”
At least that last benefit of using the giant’s 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4 IP addresses as DNS servers is obviously out the window – should, that is, the giant comply with the Italian court ruling.
Google is not alone – local Italian ISPs have also “heard” from the courts, as has Cloudflare – but Google is clearly a major target, given its wide use.
No surprise to anyone with any knowledge of Italy, football there, or let’s say, big money in general – others can read up on the Calciopoli scandal. The overall takeaway is that it’s never about football, or what’s just and right – it’s simply about money. Right or wrong.
And so, accidentally or not, the latest order came from a court in the north of the country – in Milan, Lombardy.
Google had tried to fight back the original complaint that said it didn’t do enough to shut down whatever AGCOM decided were “pirates.”
Apparently, even 30+ years after the internet became a thing, courts in Italy still have no clear understanding of what it is – what effect blocking an entire DNS service can have.
And so we have AGCOM, its orders to have any and all, “pirate” sites blocked in half an hour – and, compliant courts.
