https://bit.ly/3KEkRWW - 🔒 In 2022, rightsholders in Austria were granted permission to block various pirate site domains and IP addresses, some of which belonged to Cloudflare. This move inadvertently caused ISPs to block access to many legitimate Cloudflare customers. Following reviews by local telecoms regulator Telekom Control Commission (TKK), it was determined that this type of IP address blocking violated EU net neutrality regulations, and it will no longer be permitted in Austria. #NetNeutrality #Cloudflare #IPBlocking ⚖️ While Austrian ISPs raised concerns about the implications for net neutrality, the court's decision favored rightsholders, and ISPs found themselves mandated to block certain torrent and streaming sites, including those offering unlicensed music, scientific articles, and textbooks. This brought up the issue of overblocking and the risk of unintentional censorship. #AustrianISPs #CourtOrder #ContentBlocking 🌐 A significant shift occurred in the summer of 2022 when new blocking orders included a list of IP addresses alongside domain names. Discovery that these IP addresses belonged to Cloudflare led to an unavoidable blockade of numerous innocent sites using Cloudflare. Although initially disruptive, the long-term effect of this ruling should lead to more responsible regulation. #Cloudflare #ISP #DomainBlocking 📡 The local regulator, Telekom Control Commission (TKK), has recently stated that the IP address blocks from last August amounted to net neutrality violations under EU law. While DNS-based blocking will still be available as a method to protect rightsholders, IP address-based blocking is now considered unlawful. #NetNeutrality #TelekomControlCommission #EUlaw 💻 In an effort to preserve net neutrality and freedom of expression on the Internet, TKK clarified its stance against IP address-based blocking. Emphasizing the risks of overblocking, TKK affirmed the need to continue implementing DNS blocks, which only block individual domains, thereby maintaining legal proportionality. TKK's commitment to transparency includes the publication of all blocking decisions and affected domains.
