Indonesia Tightens Digital Rules, Summons Cloudflare Over Gambling Site Shielding
Southeast Asia's largest digital economy is battling a surge in online gambling, scams, and data breaches.
Indonesia’s Ministry of Communication and Digital (Komdigi) has taken a firmer stance on digital governance, formally notifying 25 private electronic system operators (PSEs) that they are operating in the country without completing mandatory registration. The move signals the government’s readiness to escalate enforcement after several years of outreach and education around the rules.
The companies flagged span a wide range of sectors, including cloud infrastructure, productivity software, hospitality, edtech, beauty marketplaces, fashion platforms, and major global content libraries.
Among those named are Cloudflare, Dropbox, OpenAI, Duolingo, Marriott International, Accor, IHG, Beiersdorf Indonesia, Shutterstock, Getty Images, Wikimedia Foundation, PandaDoc, Zoho, and other global brands.
The list also includes Indonesian and regional digital platforms such as Terabox, Roomme, HIJUP, Kasual Jaya Sejahtera, Fashiontoday, Dokter Siaga, Fine Counsel, Hello Beauty, Bistip, EF Hello, DokterSehat, and SignNow.
Leighton Cosseboom
Under Ministerial Regulation No. 5/2020 on Private Electronic System Operators (PM Kominfo 5/2020), all private PSEs (domestic or foreign) must register their digital systems with Komdigi before operating in Indonesia.
Articles 2 and 4 outline this obligation, while Article 7 empowers authorities to impose administrative sanctions, including fines and termination of access, on companies that fail to comply.
Officials noted that while significant socialization efforts have taken place since 2020, compliance levels among foreign operators have not improved at the pace expected. According to the ministry, more than 13,000 PSEs have been registered in Indonesia up to late 2024, but there remain “hundreds” of major platforms that have yet to complete registration.
Companies that ignore the notices risk administrative penalties ranging from formal warnings to temporary or permanent blocking of access. The ministry cited Article 7 of PM 5/2020 as enabling these actions.
Indonesia has previously taken such steps. For example, between July and December 2023, the ministry blocked over 800,000 items of online gambling content, including websites, social-media posts, and apps, as part of broader efforts to curb illegal platforms.
Leighton Cosseboom
In its announcement, the ministry revealed that Cloudflare’s infrastructure is being used extensively by illegal online-gambling operations. Of a sample of 10,000 prohibited gambling sites analyzed, more than 76 % were found to use Cloudflare’s services for IP obfuscation and rapid domain switching.
Authorities say this pattern has been formally communicated to Cloudflare, which has been summoned for clarification and urged to complete mandatory PSE registration. They view cooperation from major infrastructure providers as key to disrupting the domain-hopping tactics of digital gambling syndicates.
Indonesia, now Southeast Asia’s largest digital economy with e-commerce GMV projected at over US$82 billion for 2025, has begun placing a higher premium on digital-sovereignty tools such as registration, local data-storage rules, and content oversight. Officials argue that registration enables oversight of cross-border data flows, platform accountability, algorithmic transparency, and content-moderation compliance.
At the same time, Indonesia is battling a surge in online gambling, scams, and data breaches. Government data shows that more than 1.3 million pieces of online gambling content were blocked between October 2024 and May 2025.
Komdigi is urging all unregistered PSEs to complete filings immediately and states that this enforcement cycle will be stricter than previous ones.
Want to stay up-to-date on the stories shaping Asia's media, marketing, and comms industry? Subscribe to Mission Media for exclusive insights, campaign deep-dives, and actionable intel.
