6.7 KiB
Ethical Issues
"Don't support this company which is void of ethics" -- phyzonloop
Table of contents
- CloudFlare spams people
- Remove user's review
- Doxxing users
- Corporate solicitation of charitable contributions
- Terminating sites
- Browser vendor discrimination
- Voter suppression
CloudFlare spams people
Cloudflare is sending spam emails to non-Cloudflare users.
- Only send emails to subscribers who’ve opted in
- When the user say "stop", then stop sending email
It's that simple. But Cloudflare doesn't care. Cloudflare said using their service can stop all spammers or attackers. How can we stop Cloudflare spammers without activating Cloudflare?
Remove user's review
Cloudflare censor negative reviews. If you post anti-Cloudflare text on Twitter, you have a chance to get a reply from Cloudflare employee with "No, it's not" message. If you post a negative review on any review site, they will try to censor it.
Doxxing users
Cloudflare has a massive harassment problem. Cloudflare shares personal information of those who complain about hosted sites. They sometimes ask you to provide your true ID. If you don't want to get harassed, assaulted, swatted or killed, you better stay away from Cloudflared websites.
Corporate solicitation of charitable contributions
CloudFlare is asking for charitable contributions. It’s quite appalling that an American corporation would ask for charity alongside non-profit organizations that have good causes. If you like blocking people or wasting other people's time, you might want to order some pizzas🍕 for Cloudflare employees.
Terminating sites
What will you do if your site goes down suddenly? There are reports that Cloudflare is deleting user's configuration silently. We suggest you find better provider.
Browser vendor discrimination
CloudFlare gives preferential treatment to those using Firefox while giving hostile treatment to users of non-Tor-Browser over Tor. Tor users of who rightfully refuse to execute non-free javascript also receive hostile treatment. This access inequality is a network neutrality abuse and an abuse of power.
- Left:
[Tor Browser] Javascript Disabled, Cookie Enabled - Right:
[Chrome] Javascript Enabled, Cookie Disabled
| Browser | Access treatment |
|---|---|
| Tor Browser (Javascript enabled) | access permitted |
| Firefox (Javascript enabled) | access degraded |
| Chromium (Javascript enabled) | access degraded (pushes Google reCAPTCHA) |
| Chromium or Firefox (Javascript disabled) | access denied (pushes broken Google reCAPTCHA) |
| Chromium or Firefox (Cookie disabled) | access denied |
| lynx | access denied |
| w3m | access denied |
| wget | access denied |
"Why not use Audio button to solve easy challenge?"
Yes, there is an audio button, but it always doesn't work over Tor. You will get this message when you click it:
Try again later
Your computer or network may be sending automated queries.
To protect our users, we can't process your request right now.
For more details visit our help page
Voter suppression
Voters in US states register to vote ultimately through the state secretary's website in the state of their residence. Republican-controlled state secretary offices engage in voter suppression by proxying the state secretary's website through Cloudflare. Cloudflare's hostile treatment of Tor users, its MITM position as a centralized global point of surveillance, and its detrimental role overall makes prospective voters reluctant to register. Liberals in particular tend to embrace privacy. Voter registration forms collect sensitive information about a voter's political leaning, personal physical address, social security number, and date of birth. Most states only make a subset of that information publicly available, but Cloudflare sees all that information when someone registers to vote.
Note that paper registration does not circumvent Cloudflare because the secretary of state data entry staff workers will likely use the Cloudflare website to enter the data.
Next: Cloudflare Voices
