How Cloudflare Helps Serve Up Hate on the Web
propublica.org
propublica.org
But, we do have freedom of speech in the US. And while that doesn't mean everyone has to give you a platform for that speech, it does mean a content provider needs to decide between being a judge or allowing everything.
Sure, Neo-Nazis seem like an easy case - nobody likes Nazis. But, what about people calling for a boycott of Israel? Or what about critical political speech? Should Cloudflare (or anyone) be in the business of making judgements about those kinds of content and if they're allowed or not?
You also mention Cloudflare hosting onion addresses, which is possibly the worst-case-scenario. Can you imagine Cloudbleed on Tor?
> CloudFlare will notify the site owner and, where appropriate, the web hosting provider for the site in question.
That being said, it's in body sized font, in a huge block of text, and if I wasn't looking for it, I wouldn't see it.
So, it's "stated" but probably not very clear that abuse reports may be forwarded. As a webmaster/previous ISP, I expect (again, prior knowledge here) that abuse complaints will be forwarded. But, does the average person? Probably not.
My $0.02 - Cloudflare states it, but they need to make it much more clear if they intend to keep the policy, or possibly revise the policy. However, bad UI seems a weak reason to vilify them.
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Edit: Actually, they state it twice - including right before the submit button in larger font size. It's pretty hard to miss.
If you complain about a business or person, you ought to expect that they'll be allowed to defend themselves against you.
Especially if you complain to some 3rd party who already has an existing relationship with them... why would one expect preferential treatment?
Ever since Cloudbleed effected so many sites and exposed TLS protected data to everyone incl search engine spiders, we should have moved on.
This has led to campaigns of harassment against those writing in to protest the offensive material. People have been threatened and harassed.
Really, Cloudflare? It's one thing to provide a CDN service for these these sites; turning over this information is completely different.
To be fair, forwarding abuse reports to the client is standard practice in the hosting industry.
There's been some debate about this in the past (efnet getting upset with Hetzner for example), but I think the general consensus is that it's not really the job of the hosting company to go out of their way to protect abuse reporters.
It's also important to understand that most abuse mail that isn't DMCA spam will be automated mail informing you of compromised machines on your network, it very much makes sense to automatically forward all this mail to the client.
Side note: I wrote this.
Why not look at the likes of OVH, Hetzner, Voxility, Colocrossing and so on. Or maybe try Level3, their business may be a bit different but they're HUGE and certainly forward abuse reports.
These insane margins help pay for a big abuse department.
Most dedicated hosting providers don't have as big margins because they can't stuff 1000+ customers on one server.
Most dedicated hosting providers don't have very big abuse departments, or any abuse department at all.
Cloudflare does state on the reporting form that they “will notify the site owner.”
It doesn't mean including personal details of the reporter.
It asks for a whole lot of information (including full name and email address) and at the bottom states:
"By submitting this report, you consent to the above information potentially being released by CloudFlare to third parties such as the website owner, the responsible hosting provider, law enforcement, and/or entities like Chilling Effects."
It's pretty clear therefore that they mean all of information provided and not just the reason for the complaint.
CloudFlare will notify the site owner and, where appropriate, the web hosting provider for the site in question.
By submitting a report, you agree to submitted data potentially being released by CloudFlare to third parties, such as Chilling Effects.