Google Opposes EU Ban on DNS Resolver 8.8.8.8, Calling It of Limited Effect in Curbing Piracy

Reports state that Google has submitted feedback to the European Commission, arguing that EU plans to block DNS resolvers such as Google’s 8.8.8.8 and IP addresses are "limited in effectiveness against piracy and will cause collateral harm".

The European Commission intends to adopt DNS resolver and IP address blocking as a tactic to crack down on pirated websites. In its submission, Google explicitly states that such measures are largely ineffective and will generate additional adverse impacts.

Google explained that when it comes to DNS resolution, users can switch to alternative services to evade official blocks even if mainstream resolvers are banned. IP address blocking, meanwhile, yields disproportionately weak real-world results. Furthermore, multiple legitimate services often share a single IP address; if that address is blocked, non-infringing platforms hosted on it will also become inaccessible. Relevant screenshots are attached below by IT Home.

Google cited a case from December 2019, in which a Portuguese local internet service provider blocked virtual IP addresses hosted by Google. The incident disrupted traffic to many legitimate Google services and cut off access for lawful Google Cloud clients sharing resources via those virtual IPs and IP ranges.

The report also notes that after the UK blocked The Pirate Bay, a multitude of proxy lists emerged externally to restore access to the site. Google therefore contends that simply blocking website gateways will only prompt new workarounds. For copyrighted content distributed via BitTorrent seeds or peer-to-peer networks, files are hosted and relayed across countless global nodes, making single-point blocking incapable of cutting off all dissemination channels.