LaLiga wants NordVPN, Proton VPN, ExpressVPN and Surfshark on the EU piracy watch list: a 14-page filing built on affiliate marketing guides
Spain's football league LaLiga has asked the European Commission to place four of the best-known consumer VPN services, NordVPN, Proton VPN, ExpressVPN and Surfshark, on the 2027 EU Counterfeit and Piracy Watch List. The request, first reported by TorrentFreak and covered in detail by TechRadar, is notable less for its targets than for its reasoning: LaLiga is not arguing that running a VPN is infringement, but that the providers' own affiliate marketing materials instruct users to circumvent geo-blocks and court-ordered blocking.
The submission reportedly runs to fourteen pages and was filed in response to the Commission's call for input on the 2027 edition of the watch list, a recurring publication that names actors deemed to be involved in counterfeiting or piracy. German coverage at Tarnkappe, citing TorrentFreak, frames the listing push as a direct consequence of the providers' affiliate advertising practices, and that is where the league's complaint actually begins.The argument: affiliate guides, not VPNs as such
According to the reporting, the complaint centers on affiliate pages and setup guides that show prospective customers how to use a VPN to watch content that is geo-blocked in their country, including football broadcasts covered by Spanish court-ordered blocking. LaLiga's position, as summarized by Plagiarism Today, is that this instruction costs the providers their status as neutral intermediaries: a service that actively teaches users how to defeat legal blocking measures, the league argues, is no longer a passive tool but a participant in the infringement it enables. Notably, the filing does not claim that the VPNs' core privacy function is unlawful, a distinction that will matter as the debate develops.A Spanish court background
The watch list push sits on top of an existing litigation thread in Spain. In February 2026, a Spanish court issued an ex parte order requiring NordVPN and Proton VPN to block access to sites streaming pirated football matches. In May, the proceedings produced a more muted result: the court declined to fine NordVPN, finding that the pirate streams' IP addresses changed too frequently for blocking to keep up. That practical gap, dynamic infrastructure outpacing static blocklists, is part of why attention has shifted from the streams themselves to the tools and marketing that surround them.What the watch list is, and is not
The EU Counterfeit and Piracy Watch List is a Commission publication, not legislation. It does not impose fines, mandate blocking, or create legal obligations for the entities it names; its force is reputational and agenda-setting. Names on the list become reference points for rightsholder campaigns, national enforcement efforts and future legislative proposals, which is precisely why inclusion is contested. Coverage at BetaNews reads the filing in those terms: a soft-law lever that could pull privacy tools into the enforcement conversation without any court ever ruling against them.Why this matters for VPN and Tor users
For readers who follow Tor and censorship, the precedent logic is the story. LaLiga's theory does not require proving that NordVPN, Proton VPN, ExpressVPN or Surfshark infringed anything themselves; it requires only association, treating a tool as actionable because third parties who promote it publish instructions for misuse. Applied consistently, that logic reaches past VPNs: relay operators, bridge distributors and mirror maintainers could equally be recast as enablers based on how others describe or market them. The enforcement mechanics are familiar as well. The same family of measures, intermediaries ordered to do the blocking that rightsholders cannot do at the source, is visible in how countries try to filter Tor, and the February order against NordVPN and Proton VPN shows the approach migrating from ISPs to privacy infrastructure.- Four consumer VPN providers named in a fourteen-page submission for the 2027 EU Counterfeit and Piracy Watch List.
- Stated basis: affiliate marketing guides showing how to bypass geo-blocks and court-ordered blocking, not VPN use as such.
- February 2026: a Spanish ex parte order required NordVPN and Proton VPN to block illegal football streams.
- May 2026: a Spanish court declined to fine NordVPN, citing rapidly changing pirate stream IP addresses.
- The watch list carries no direct legal effect, but listing consumer privacy tools would set a significant reputational precedent.