The CCIA warned that “the Piracy Shield creates numerous concerns that could unintentionally affect legitimate online services, mainly because it risks overblocking.” The letter noted that in October 2024 “Google Drive was wrongly blocked by the Piracy Shield system, producing a three-hour outage for all Italian users, while 13.5 percent of users remained blocked at the IP level, and 3 percent were still blocked at the DNS level after 12 hours.”
The Italian framework “seeks to automate blocking by permitting rights holders to submit IP addresses directly through the platform, after which ISPs are required to apply a block,” the CCIA stated. “The checks performed between submission and blocking are unclear and appear to be insufficient. Moreover, there is a complete absence of remedies for parties affected if an incorrect domain or IP address is submitted and blocked.”
30-minute block window impedes “careful verification”
The 30-minute blocking timeframe “allows very little opportunity for ISPs to thoroughly verify that the submitted destination is actually being used for piracy,” the CCIA said. The association also raised concerns about the piracy-reporting platform’s connections to the body that manages Italy’s top football league.
“Furthermore, the fact that the Piracy Shield platform was built for AGCOM by a firm linked to Lega Serie A, which is among the few entities permitted to submit reports, prompts serious questions about a possible conflict of interest that worsens the transparency problem,” the letter added.
An industry body representing Italian ISPs has contended that the law mandates “filtering and tasks that collide with individual freedoms” and conflicts with European rules that treat broadband network services as simple conduits exempt from liability.
“By contrast, in Italy criminal liability has been explicitly imposed on ISPs,” Dalia Coffetti, head of regulatory and EU affairs at the Association of Italian Internet Providers, wrote in April 2025. Coffetti maintained, “There are more effective means to combat piracy, including criminal law, international cooperation, and technological measures that degrade the signal quality from illegal streaming sites or IPTV. European ISPs are willing to contribute to anti-piracy efforts, but the answer is not filtering and blocking IP addresses.”
