Google vs. EU Piracy Blocking: The Arguments and Real-World Overblocking Incidents That Back Them Up

Blocking should be a last resort, not a first response. Google argued that court-ordered blocking should be used only when standard takedown procedures have failed, and that courts should not act as "mere rightholder 'mail boxes'" that rubber-stamp blocking demands without scrutiny. Any injunctions should be transparent, limited in time, and have shared costs .

The real solution is better legal alternatives. Google said its experience shows that "unmet consumer demand is a key driver of piracy," and the best way to combat it is to provide "better, more convenient, and legitimate alternatives" rather than expanding enforcement .

Real-World Incidents Cited by Google

Google cited specific examples of overblocking from Italy, France, and Portugal to demonstrate the real harm caused by expanding blocking measures beyond ISPs.

Italy — Piracy Shield Blocked a Google Drive Subdomain

Italy's automated "Piracy Shield" system erroneously blocked drive.user.google.com, a legitimate Google subdomain used for file downloads, after a rightsholder report was filed without proper checks . The block caused a nationwide outage of Google Drive for several hours. Cloudflare reported that the outage lasted over 12 hours, preventing thousands of Italian students and professionals from accessing their files . Research from the University of Twente confirmed that the incident also inadvertently blocked YouTube and hundreds of other legitimate websites, including educational and charitable organizations .

Italy — Piracy Shield Blocked IP Addresses Hosting Over 42 Million Domains

Google pointed out that Piracy Shield blocked IP addresses belonging to Cloudflare's CDN infrastructure, which in turn blocked access to more than 42 million legitimate customer domains hosted on those addresses . A Cloudflare blog post explained that the system is "a blunt tool for rightsholders to control what is available on the Internet without any traditional legal safeguards," requiring ISPs, VPNs, and DNS resolvers to block reported domains and IP addresses within 30 minutes .

France — Cisco Suspended OpenDNS Service

After a French court ordered DNS resolver blocking against pirate sites, Cisco chose to stop offering its OpenDNS service in France entirely rather than implement the court-ordered blockade . This demonstrated one unintended consequence of such mandates: instead of helping enforce blocking, providers may simply exit the market, reducing consumer choice and security. A separate EU-funded DNS provider was also ordered by a French court to block pirate sites, confirming that third-party intermediaries can be required to take responsibility .

Portugal — Google Services Disrupted by IP Blocking

In December 2019, ISPs in Portugal blocked Google-hosted virtual IP addresses under a site-blocking order, which disrupted "core Google services and cut off legitimate traffic for other innocent Google Cloud customers sharing the same virtual IPs" .

Broader Industry Concerns

Google's submission was not alone. EuroISPA, representing over 3,300 European ISPs, also filed a complaint with the European Commission calling blocking measures "disproportionate" and demanding that copyright holders be held liable for collateral damage . The Computer & Communications Industry Association (CCIA), which includes Google, Amazon, and Cloudflare, wrote to the Commission asking it to assess the legality of Italy's Piracy Shield under EU law .

Google also noted that it has been ordered to block access to pirate domain names through its DNS resolver in France, Belgium, Italy, and Portugal — giving it first-hand experience with these measures . Separately, a large-scale OONI study of a LaLiga blocking order in Spain found that over 554,000 domains were blocked at least once, including sites belonging to Amnesty International, the ACLU, UNICEF, UNHCR, the Australian Senate, and Stanford Law Review .

The stakes are high: as the European Commission reviews the Copyright Directive, it must weigh the effectiveness of site-blocking against the documented risks of overblocking and collateral damage to legitimate internet services.