Spain's LaLiga IP blocking disrupts over 554,000 legitimate websites during football matches

In Spain, LaLiga's court-approved IP blocking to curb piracy has caused widespread collateral damage. During football matches, thousands of legitimate websites and services are blocked because they share IP addresses with pirated streams. An OONI report found that over 554,000 legitimate domains were affected between January and June 2026, with Cloudflare being the most impacted. The blocks, which last several hours, have led to losses exceeding 3.1 million euros for affected services. LaLiga defends the measures, but critics argue they violate net neutrality and harm innocent parties.