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Today an Italian regulator, the Guarantor for the Protection of Personal Data (referred to by its Italian acronym, GPDP), announced a temporary ban on ChatGPT in Italy. The ban is effective immediately and will remain in place while the regulator investigates its concerns that OpenAI—the developer of ChatGPT—is unlawfully collecting Italian Internet users’ personal data to train the conversational AI software and has no age verification system in place to prevent kids from accessing the tool.

The Italian ban comes after a ChatGPT data breach on March 20 , exposing “user conversations and information relating to the payment of subscribers to the paid service,” GPDP said in its press release. OpenAI notified users impacted by the breach and said it was "committed to protecting our users’ privacy and keeping their data safe," apologizing for falling "short of that commitment, and of our users’ expectations."

Ars could not immediately reach OpenAI to comment. The company has 20 days to respond with proposed measures that could address GPDP’s concerns or face fines of up to 20 million euro or 4 percent of OpenAI’s gross revenue.

CDN provider Cloudflare is one of the leading Internet companies, providing services to millions of customers large and small.

The service positions itself as a neutral intermediary that passes on traffic while making sure that customers remain secure. Its userbase includes billion-dollar companies such as IBM, Shopify, and L’Oreal, but also countless smaller outlets.

With a company of this size, it comes as no surprise that some Cloudflare customers are engaged in controversial activities. This includes some pirate sites and services, which have landed Cloudflare in court on several occasions.

Last year there were two prominent cases against Cloudflare in Italy. In the first one, football league Serie A and Sky Italy requested Cloudflare to block the unauthorized IPTV service “IPTV THE BEST” and in a similar case, rightsholders wanted “ENERGY IPTV” blocked.

Cloudflare Appeals Blocking Injunctions

Cloudflare lost both cases and was ordered to block the services in question. While the company hasn’t commented on the legal actions in detail, it decided to appeal the two injunctions at the Milan court.

Last Friday, the court ruled on the “IPTV THE BEST” case, confirming that Cloudflare is indeed required to block access.

In its defense, Cloudflare argued that it doesn’t provide hosting services but merely passes on bits and bytes. In addition, it pointed out that the IPTV service could still remain active even if its account was terminated.

Cloudflare Facilitates Access

The court was not convinced by these arguments and concluded that Cloudflare contributes to the infringements of its customer by optimizing and facilitating the site’s availability.

“It is in fact adequately confirmed that Cloudflare carries out support and optimization activities to showcase sites, which allow the visibility and advertising of illegal services,” the court concluded.

That the IPTV service could continue without using Cloudflare is irrelevant, the court stressed.

In addition, the court confirmed that copyright holders are entitled to these types of protective blocking measures, even if the activity of the online intermediary itself is not directly infringing.

Dynamic Orders

The Milan court reached the same conclusion in Cloudflare’s appeal against the “ENERGY IPTV” injunction, which was decided yesterday. In both cases, the court also confirmed that the injunctions are “dynamic”, which means that if the IPTV services switch to new domains or IP-addresses, these have to be blocked as well.

While the ruling is a setback for Cloudflare, copyright holders are pleased. Attorney Simona Lavagnini, who represented Sky Italy, informs TorrentFreak that it will now be easier to hold online services accountable for infringing customers.

“I am pleased to see the position taken by the Court, confirming that injunction orders can be addressed to all providers involved in the provision of services to those who offer illegal contents on the web.

“This principle is now general and includes telecoms as well as passive hosting providers and other services such as CDNs,” Lavagnini adds.

We also reached out to Cloudflare for a comment on these recent court orders but the company didn’t immediately reply. The CDN provider previously confirmed that it has been legally required to block several domains, without going into further detail.

With regard to earlier blocking orders, Cloudflare said that it complies with these in the relevant jurisdictions. In other words, the targeted services remain available in other countries. Whether that’s also the case here is unknown.

Update: The legal team representing the Lega Nazionale Professionisti Serie A (LNPA), which includes Bruno Ghirardi, Stefano Previti, Alessandro La Rosa, and Riccardo Traina Chiarini, is happy with the outcome and told us the following:

“Cloudflare participates in activities that allow the visibility of the illicit services IPTV THE BEST and ENERGY IPTV – also through the storage of data from these sites – and participates in the flow of data in violation of the rights of LNPA.”

“This implies the legitimacy of targeting Cloudflare as a passive subject of the precautionary order, despite the possibility that, in the absence of Cloudflare’s services, illicit access to the protected content would be also possible.”

From: TF , for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.

Enlarge / The iPhone 11 Pro Max. (credit: Samuel Axon)

Italy has again hit Apple with a fine for what the country's regulators deem to be misleading marketing claims, though the fine is only €10 million ($12 million)—a pittance from a company like Apple.

This time around, Italy's Autorita Garante della Concorrenza e del Mercato (AGCM) claims that Apple told consumers that many iPhone models are water resistant but that the iPhones are not as resistant as Apple says. In one example, Apple claimed the iPhone 8 was rated IP67 for water and dust resistance, meaning the phone could survive for up to 30 minutes under three feet of water. But the Italian regulator says that's only true under special lab conditions with static and pure water conditions.

An announcement by the AGCM specifically names the iPhone 8, iPhone 8 Plus, iPhone XR, iPhone XS, iPhone XS Max, iPhone 11, iPhone 11 Pro and iPhone 11 Pro Max. Presumably, the claims would also apply to the iPhone 12 line, but that line was only just introduced to the market.

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In recent years, many copyright holders have complained that Cloudflare does little to nothing to stop pirate sites from using its services.

The US-based company receives numerous DMCA notices but aside from forwarding these to the affected customers, it takes no action.

Cloudflare sees itself as a neutral intermediary that simply passes on bits. This approach is not welcomed by everyone and, as a result, the company has been placed on the EU piracy watchlist alongside familiar pirate sites such as The Pirate Bay, Seasonvar and Rapidgator.

Despite this callout, Cloudflare maintains its position. The company doesn’t want to intervene based on allegations from copyright holders and requests a court order to take action. These orders are very rare, but a few days ago the Court of Milan, Italy, set a precedent.

Sky and Serie A Sued Cloudflare

The case in question was filed by the TV platform Sky Italy and Lega Serie A , Italy’s top football league. The organizations requested a court order to stop various third-party intermediaries from providing access to “IPTV THE BEST”, a popular IPTV service targeted at an Italian audience.

Since the IPTV service is a Cloudflare customer the US-based CDN provider was also sued. The copyright holders demanded Cloudflare and several other companies including hosting provider OVH, and ISPs such as Vodafone, TIM, Fastweb, Wind and Tiscali, to stop working with the pirate service.

Last September, the Court of Milan sided with Sky and Serie A. It issued a preliminary injunction ordering the companies to stop working with the IPTV provider, regardless of the domain name or IP-address it uses.

Cloudflare objected to the claim. In its defense, the company pointed out that it isn’t hosting any infringing content. As a CDN, it simply caches content and relays traffic, nothing more. In addition, the Italian court would lack jurisdiction as well, the company argued.

Cloudflare’s Defense Falls Flat

Despite the fierce defense from Cloudflare, which extended the case by more than a year, the court didn’t change its position. In a recent order, it explained that it’s irrelevant whether a company hosts files or merely caches the content. In both cases, it helps to facilitate copyright-infringing activity.

This is an important decision because services like Cloudflare are hard to classify under EU law, which makes a general distinction between hosting providers and mere conduit services. The Italian court clarified that such classification is irrelevant in this matter.

“The ruling is unique in its kind because it expressly addresses the issue of the provision of information society services that are difficult to classify in the types outlined by the European eCommerce Directive,” attorney Alessandro La Rosa informs TorrentFreak.

Together with Mr. Bruno Ghirardi, his colleague at the law firm Studio Previti , La Rosa represented the football league in this matter. They worked in tandem with attorney Simona Lavagnini , who represented Sky Italy.

‘Unique and Important Ruling’

Lavagnini tells us that the ruling is important because it’s the first blocking order to be issued against a CDN provider in Italy.

“The order is important because, at least to my knowledge, it is the first issued against a CDN, in which the CDN was ordered to cease the activities carried out in relation to illegal services, also including those activities which cannot qualify as hosting activities,” she says.

“The recent order clearly says that the services of the CDN shall be inhibited because they help to allow third parties to carry out the illegal action which is the subject matter of the urgent proceeding, even if there is no data storage by the CDN,” Lavagnini adds.

TorrentFreak also reached out to Cloudflare for a comment but at the time of writing the company has yet to respond.

Cloudflare Blocking Becomes More Common

While the attorneys we spoke with highlight the uniqueness of the ruling, Cloudflare previously noted in its transparency report that it has already blocked 22 domain names in Italy following a court order. It’s not known what case the company was referring to there, but it affects 15 separate accounts.

The blocking actions will only affect Italians but in theory, they could expand. There are grounds to apply them across Europe or even worldwide, Lavagnini tells us, but that will likely require further clarification from the court.

This isn’t the first time that Cloudflare has been ordered to block a copyright-infringing site in Europe. Earlier this year a German court ordered the company to block access to DDL-Music , or face fines and a potential prison sentence.

In Italy, the CDN provider was also required to terminate the accounts of several pirate sites last year. However, in that case, Cloudflare was seen as a hosting provider due to its “Always Online” feature. Also, that court order didn’t mention geo-blocking or blocking in general.

From: TF , for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.

Over the past several years Italy’s Guardia di Finanza has been applying increasing pressure to various players in the piracy ecosystem.

In addition to targeting distributors of movies, TV shows and live sports via subscription services, the authorities have also homed in on suppliers of pirated newspapers and periodicals. A new law enforcement operation revealed Wednesday continues along those same lines.

Operation Evil Web

The new action is being spearheaded by the Economic-Financial Police Unit of the Guardia di Finanza of Gorizia. The unit reports that following an investigation it was able to secure a preventative seizure order to block access to 58 websites and 18 Telegram channels.

With combined annual traffic of around 80 million visits, the authorities claim that by blocking these platforms they have disrupted around 90% of the audiovisual and editorial piracy carried out in Italy. Given the availability of pirated content in the region, regardless of blocking, that figure sounds optimistic but the operation is clearly significant nonetheless.

Investigation Into IPTV Expanded Overseas

According to the GdF, the investigation began by targeting an IT expert operating under the online nickname of ‘Diabolik’. The authorities haven’t yet positively identified this developer but given the existence of a Kodi addon called Diabolik441 dedicated to Italian content with links to the Evil King branding (GdF’s operation is called ‘Evil Web’), it seems likely this was one of their targets. An Android application using the same name is also featured in a GdF video (see below).

After reportedly identifying Diabolik, the investigation broadened to several regions of Italy and then overseas, including Germany, the Netherlands, and the United States. Three other IT experts also became part of the investigation, identified by GdF as ‘Doc’, ‘Spongebob’, and ‘Webflix’.

Again, GdF hasn’t identified these alleged IT experts using anything other than their nicknames but nevertheless describes them as “real oracles” when it comes to the illegal distribution of movies, pay TV, live sports, cartoons, newspapers, magazines, manuals, and even pornography. All four developers have been reported to the “competent judicial authorities” for prosecution.

Authorities Trying to Identify 1,000 IPTV Subscribers

In Italy, piracy-enabled set-top devices are called ‘pezzotto’ and in common with many regions, are used by huge numbers of end users hoping to gain free or cheap access to pirated movies, TV shows, and live sports. GdF says work is now underway to identify around 1,000 pezzotto/IPTV subscribers – some local, some overseas – so that they can be prosecuted for breaches of copyright law and receiving stolen goods.

According to the authorities, penalties can reach up to three years in prison and a fine of 25,000 euros. Similar penalties were mentioned back in Febraury when the Guardia di Finanza said it had reported 223 subscribers of pirate IPTV services to the judicial authorities.

Enhanced Site-Blocking Procedures

GdF reports that thanks to a new “procedural innovation”, it is now possible to more effectively block sites that facilitate access to previously blocked domains.

“This procedural innovation is allowing, day by day, the immediate inhibition of hundreds of new web domains illegally created in order to circumvent the original provision of the Judicial Authority,” its announcement reads.

“In addition, the procedures for international judicial cooperation have been activated – and are still in progress – in order to seize the servers from which multimedia contents are distributed in violation of copyright.”

From: TF , for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.

By their very nature, it is rare for torrent sites to stay online for more than a few years.

While there are a few notable exceptions that have bucked the trend, most come and go, having wilted under significant legal or financial pressures.

After being founded in 2005, TNTVillage, which for years was Italy’s most popular torrent site, was one of the unusual ones. Hated by local anti-piracy groups but loved by fans, the site aimed to draw attention to restrictive copyright law but also attempted to act ethically by not releasing new content quickly after release.

In September 2018, the site was targeted by a lawsuit with site owner Luigi Di Liberto revealing that his home had been searched by authorities. Now, according to the Italian Publishers Association and anti-piracy group FAPAV, the Court of Milan has “ordered the cessation of TNT Village’s file sharing activities, fully endorsing the rights holders’ requests.”

According to the groups, TNTVillage made available more than 134,000 titles available to the public, including movies, TV shows, anime, software, and books.

“It is a great result,” says Ricardo Franco Levi, President of the Italian Publishers Association (AIE)

“The court fully accepts our position. One million users, through the activity and structure of TNT Village, have illegally and massively shared contents of publishers protected by Copyright: there is nothing ethical about behavior contrary to the law and damaging the rights as these.

“Was this the most famous pirate house on the Italian web? We will do everything to counter not only this but all alternative forms of piracy.”

While the ruling is a considerable win for the groups after all these years campaigning against TNTVillage, there will be no simultaneous shutdown of Italy’s largest torrent site. In fact, the site itself stole the groups’ thunder in September, when an announcement revealed it would shut itself down.

“Unfortunately due to [owner] Di Liberto’s decision, not attributable to our will and with extreme regret, we inform you that the site and the forum are closed,” the announcement read.

However, given the anti-copyright stance of the site’s now-former operator, the site’s parting shot is of particular interest. Instead of deleting everything and disappearing into the shadows, the announcement added a file for download, noting that “if you are a geek, you may be interested in downloading THIS.”

The file bears the hallmarks of a site dump, which interested parties may be able to use to resurrect the infamous but now-defunct torrent platform. This hasn’t gone unnoticed to FAPAV, which is promising action if problems arise.

While celebrating the legal victory and noting the importance of continuing the fight against piracy, FAPAV General Secretary Federico Bagnoli Rossi warns that anti-piracy groups will be on the lookout for anyone seeking to clone the platform.

“In the meantime, our Federation together with AIE is continuing to verify that the portal database is not repurposed on other sites. Otherwise we will evaluate whether to proceed by legal means also against new possible platforms,” Rossi says.

“We are pleased with how this activity is progressing and we will certainly not lower our guard.”

Source: TF , for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and more. We also have VPN reviews, discounts, offers and coupons .