Cloudflare launches a tool to combat AI bots
How do AI vendors typically allow bot blocking?
AI vendors, such as Google, OpenAI, and Apple, typically allow bot blocking by enabling website owners to modify their site's robots1.txt file. This text file informs bots which pages they can access for data scraping and model training1. However, not all AI scrapers respect these instructions, leading to the development of tools like Cloudflare's bot-combatting solution to detect and block evasive AI bots.
What new tool has Cloudflare launched?
Cloudflare has launched a new, free tool to prevent bots from scraping websites hosted on its platform for data to train AI models1. This tool analyzes AI bot and crawler traffic to fine-tune automatic bot detection models and helps website owners protect their content from unauthorized scraping and model training by AI companies4.
Why did Cloudflare develop this new tool?
Cloudflare developed the new tool to prevent bots from scraping websites hosted on its platform for data to train AI models1. This move was in response to concerns that some AI companies might persistently adapt to evade bot detection and access content dishonestly.