Regardless of whether the law is absurd or not (I honestly have no idea, but we've seen some crazy stuff lately in the EU), its kinda precious that a CEO only complains about it when his company is fined.
I'm certain it is also quite reassuring for any paying Cloudflare customer that the company strategy is driven by the CEO Twitter rants; That if by some reason doesn't want to play ball with local laws (as draconian as they may be) and the company is fined, his public reaction is threatening to leave the country. Its not the first time he does this, and certainly it won't be the last. This communication style gets old fast, and IMO this actually hurts the company - I'm a free tier user and would never subscribe any paid products. I think their tech is amazing, they surely have great engineers, but I don't feel comfortable financing a company that thinks it is above the law.
The icing on the cake is the plea for a free internet; You know what a free internet looks like? A network that doesn't make half its content inaccessible because someone in a major company did a mistake on a SQL query. Or a network that isn't controlled by a company that basically just said "we're tight with the US government, so f** your laws".
He did mention that they were fighting the law before they were fined and they plan to challenge the fine in court.
He has also been vocal about other similar legislation before they were enacted or the company got fined (not sure about this specific one though).
So I don't think it's fair to characterize it as he "only complains about it when his company is fined".
He's giving Italy and Italians fair warning that he will abandon the Italian market to avoid being subject to their laws, and I think it will go that way. I guess it's up to the Italians to find a replacement.
Can't have a global edge network without also being a big player - something Cloudflare is disliked for. You're suggesting everyone move to a new provider, so we can dislike the new vendor instead?
Likely because it mentions JD Vance and the current US administration in a positive light, since they have rightly shone a bright light on the active decline of free speech in Europe.
I've had the pleasure of working for CEOs who don't resort to public threats (or all caps) to get their point across. When I chose who leads me or who I work with stability and consistency are key. This just sounds like a man who thinks he can flex his way out of a problem and that is just such a short sited way to solve problems. Not my kind of CEO.
Why shouldn't they resort to strongarming? Italy literally wants to blacklist IPs at whim for the entire planet. Cloudflare CEO is 100% in the right to strongarm them. Who do these people even think they are, to censor the planet's DNS?
They are not censoring the planets dns. Cloudflare is a private company that provides dns resolution and it must comply with the local laws of the multiple places it engages in business with.
Just like every other company. From italian isps to vodafone to google.
> financing a company that thinks it is above the law
I've never liked arguments like this, because laws are often complex, unreasonable, and unjust, and all of us (both individuals and companies) routinely use our best judgment to decide which laws to flout and which to follow, and when, where, and why to do so.
For real. Laws likee anti-circumvention laws are a horrible plague on humanity. There's all kinds of nonsense & so often businesses have far too much sway or outright grasp over the legal system.
You can't be a hacker without having any Question Authority backbone or will. You don't have to be full onboard but very few nations seem capable of behaving at all reasonably when it comes to technology. And few even have the chance to do right: American corporate empire has insisted countries adopt particularly brutal ip laws for decades, and made trade contingent upon it.
Yes i offered a simplification, but reality is often nuanced. But, if you are in business, you accepted the terms and profited from them; Im not disputing how stupid or far-fetched the law is - Im just pointing out the child in the room.
If it is as the rant describes, every other company operating in the italian market has also to accomodate this; where is the rant from the other CEOs? From the telecom providers? From the VPN endpoints?
I share that perspective. Being an international company is a challenging thing regards law. You have to operate in best intent, and judges respect that.
And sure, some laws and most likely this one, are stupid. I always take GDPR as an example. Annoying as fuck, but a good regulation. Well written, well executed and hits its goal.
However, disrespecting and being tone deaf in communication is wrong, ignoring the intent (Italian based legal control of IP violations) is wrong and treating the Internet as a legal free space (or only accept US perspective) is wrong. Italy is a sovereign state and the Internet is operating there and on its citizens. It has all right and duty to do so. We have to respect that.
> And sure, some laws and most likely this one, are stupid. I always take GDPR as an example. Annoying as fuck, but a good regulation. Well written, well executed and hits its goal.
It's funny people normally use GDPR as an example of a law so poorly written and implemented that the sites of the very EU governments that passed it are still not in compliance a decade later.
Style aside, what do you think he should do? Faced with a law that not only imposes disproportionate fines (more than revenue from the country), but on the surface also requires blocking globally, there are really only a few things to do:
The government complains everyday about the judges and it's trying to make a referendum to make judges angry, so I wouldn't say courts do what govt says
how ever did you reach that conclusion? For 1, his tweet literally says "That, of course, is DISGUSTING and even before yesterday’s fine we had multiple legal challenges pending against the underlying scheme." 2 is something that happens behind the doors, and it's rather uncharitable to just assume he skipped it.
Crying free speech and attempting to rile up the tech bros is just what companies do these days.
It doesn't matter if, like this issue, it has absolutely nothing to do with free speech; if you position yourself as a defender of the "open internet", "open source", "free thinking" or "innovation" you get every dingleberry that hangs off Musk to come and defend you.
American free speech as of 2026 includes openly threatening to invade European territory unless it is given away.
It's funny how America can force it's own crappy content protection laws to the entire globe, but another country can't have their own.
The current administration is burning good will to America with it's allies at an alarming rate. This isn't good for stability or world order. I think this year is could be a contender to be the worst one yet of this millennium as we find other despots empowered by America's actions.
> I don't feel comfortable financing a company that thinks it is above the law
Of all the companies to make that claim about in 2026, Cloudflare would not be very high on the list I would think... Also, hopefully you're not paying for any genAI services and making that statement?
I'm certain it is also quite reassuring for any paying Cloudflare customer that the company strategy is driven by the CEO Twitter rants; That if by some reason doesn't want to play ball with local laws (as draconian as they may be) and the company is fined, his public reaction is threatening to leave the country. Its not the first time he does this, and certainly it won't be the last. This communication style gets old fast, and IMO this actually hurts the company - I'm a free tier user and would never subscribe any paid products. I think their tech is amazing, they surely have great engineers, but I don't feel comfortable financing a company that thinks it is above the law.
The icing on the cake is the plea for a free internet; You know what a free internet looks like? A network that doesn't make half its content inaccessible because someone in a major company did a mistake on a SQL query. Or a network that isn't controlled by a company that basically just said "we're tight with the US government, so f** your laws".