My ISP obfuscates my location by replacing it with an IP address . However, if the government wants to know my location, they can ask my ISP to find out a physical address based on an IP address. They can also ask Cloudflare to find out an origin IP address based on a domain name. This is normal. It's also slow. The Spanish government doesn't want to bother arresting pirates, it would rather be seen doing something about the problem, without doing something about the problem.