The biggest net neutrality conflict in Spain in recent years will, at least for now, receive no response from the authority responsible for overseeing it. The Secretariat of State for Telecommunications and Digital Infrastructures (SETELECO) considers that claims related to IP address blocks used to combat piracy during LaLiga broadcasts should be resolved in court, not through administrative procedures for network neutrality supervision.
This conclusion is documented in the Report on supervision in Spain of European regulations on access to an open Internet for 2025, a document released after months of controversy over the dynamic blocks implemented during match days, and which, for the first time, dedicates a specific section to this issue.
The key points of LaLiga’s blocks in 30 seconds
- Claims related to network neutrality increased significantly in 2025, coinciding with IP address blocks during football matches.
- SETELECO maintains that these measures originate from court rulings and that any controversy over their implementation should be resolved in the courts.
- The report does not analyze whether the blocks were technically proportional nor assess the impact on legitimate services hosted on shared infrastructures.
- The decision leaves an administrative vacuum on one of the most recent and contentious debates about net neutrality, with implications for operators, CDNs, cloud providers, and hosting companies.
Until now, public debate mainly focused on the legality of the blocks promoted by LaLiga and carried out by various operators to prevent access to illegal broadcasts. However, the Ministry’s report introduces another element that could have even more significant consequences: the regulatory body responsible for monitoring compliance with European rules on an open Internet considers that it is not within its scope to evaluate how these measures are technically implemented when they derive from a court ruling.
This does not mean that the government explicitly endorses all the blocks nor that it declares they respect net neutrality. Instead, it shifts the conflict to the judicial realm, leaving without independent administrative oversight one of the most controversial aspects of the case.
An unprecedented increase in claims
The report for the first time reflects the impact this controversy had on the complaint procedures filed by users.
In 2025, the Telecommunications Customer Service Office received 12,454 complaints, compared to 9,638 in 2024.
What is most striking is not only the overall increase but also the trend in complaints related to network neutrality.
In 2024, they barely represented 0.1% of the total, around a dozen cases. In 2025, they rose to 2.45%, although the report clarifies that part of these concerns related to service speed issues.
Excluding those complaints—roughly 2.13% of the total—about 265 are linked to potential violations other than speed, a figure that coincides temporally with the rollout of dynamic blocks during sports broadcasts.
Although the Ministry does not explicitly attribute this increase to LaLiga, it is difficult to find another event related to net neutrality that would explain a growth close to 2,550% in less than a year.
The supervisory authority avoids delving into the substance of the debate
The most relevant aspect of the report appears when SETELECO responds to the complaints received.
The agency recalls that the blocks occur as a consequence of court orders issued by the Commercial Court No. 6 in Barcelona to protect LaLiga’s audiovisual rights.
It also cites the March 2025 ruling that dismissed nullity incidents filed by, among others, Cloudflare and RootedCON, which rejected the existence of indiscriminate blocking procedures.
From there, the Ministry’s conclusion is clear.
Disagreements over which IP addresses are blocked “must be addressed and resolved within the scope of compliance and enforcement of court rulings.”
In other words, the body appointed by the General Telecommunications Law to oversee network neutrality understands that this conflict should be directly resolved in the court that authorized the measures.
A distinction between judicial authorization and technical execution
Here emerges one of the aspects likely to generate the most debate within the tech sector.
That a judge authorizes the blocking of certain resources used to distribute illegal content does not necessarily mean that all technical implementations of that authorization produce the same effect.
However, the report does not evaluate this issue.
It does not analyze whether blocking a shared IP address is proportionate.
It does not examine whether less invasive technical alternatives existed.
Nor does it assess whether execution affected services unrelated to sports broadcasts.
From a legal perspective, the existence of a court ruling can justify the action.
From a technical perspective, however, the debate remains open.
Internet no longer functions as it did when the European Regulation was created
The conflict also highlights a profound change in Internet architecture.
When the European regulation on access to an open Internet was adopted, blocking an IP address typically affected a specific server or a relatively small number of services.
Today, the reality is very different.
Much of the Internet operates on shared infrastructures where a single IP address can serve thousands of domains, applications, APIs, and enterprise platforms simultaneously.
Companies like Cloudflare, Vercel, Fastly, Akamai, and Bunny distribute millions of websites using such architectures.
In this context, blocking an IP address can have very different consequences compared to a decade ago.
This very circumstance was one of the main arguments used by Cloudflare and other providers to question the proportionality of the blocks during the season.
The report also does not measure collateral damage
Another notable aspect is the lack of data on the actual impact of these measures.
The document does not detail:
- how many IP addresses were blocked in 2025;
- how many legitimate domains may have been affected;
- how long they were inaccessible;
- how many companies reported issues;
- nor the number of false positives that may have occurred.
The only statistical evidence available is the complaints filed by users with the Telecommunications Office.
This excludes an indeterminate number of incidents directly reported to cloud providers, operators, CDNs, or web hosting companies without formalizing an official complaint.
A precedent for the entire cloud industry
Perhaps the most important consequence of the report does not directly relate to football.
If the authority responsible for overseeing net neutrality considers that blocks resulting from court rulings are outside its scope, future similar disputes will need to be resolved in judicial courts.
This potentially affects the entire digital ecosystem.
Not only telecommunications operators.
Also cloud providers, hosting companies, SaaS platforms, content delivery networks (CDNs), and any shared infrastructure that could be affected by similar measures.
Practically, the report establishes an institutional guiding principle: administrative supervision ends where a court ruling begins.
An ongoing debate
The document arrives just weeks before a new football season, during which dynamic blocks are expected to be reinstated.
Meanwhile, the debate continues without a technical response from the authority responsible for ensuring net neutrality.
The Ministry acknowledges that claims increased significantly in 2025 but does not analyze whether the blocks were proportional or their impact on third parties.
In an Internet built on cloud services, CDNs, and shared IPs, this lack of oversight leaves many questions unanswered.
The key question is whether the judicial tools used to combat audiovisual piracy remain the most appropriate for an Internet infrastructure that is very different from when these mechanisms were designed.
Frequently Asked Questions
What has SETELECO decided regarding LaLiga blocks?
The agency considers that claims related to the implementation of these blocks should be resolved in court, not through the administrative procedures for net neutrality supervision.
How many claims were filed in 2025?
The Telecommunications User Office received 12,454 claims. About 265 were related to potential violations of net neutrality beyond speed issues.
Does the report say that the blocks were proportional?
No. The report does not perform a technical assessment of the proportionality of the blocks nor analyze their effects on legitimate services hosted on shared infrastructures.
Why does the cloud sector find this concerning?
Because many Internet services share IP addresses within platforms like CDNs or cloud providers. Blocking an IP can simultaneously affect thousands of websites and applications unrelated to the infringement that prompted the measure.
