Huge artificial intelligence companies that train their models on data harvested without permission from commercial websites will face a new roadblock, with global internet infrastructure giant Cloudflare making it easier for publishers and other website owners to lock their virtual doors to “web crawlers”.
Publishers including TIME, Condé Nast, Sky News, Quora, The Atlantic, Fortune, Associated Press, Pinterest and BuzzFeed all put their names to an announcement of the new “permission-based” model of directing internet traffic to websites being offered by CloudFlare, which makes it the default setting to block AI bots without explicit approval.
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Paul Smith edits the technology coverage and has been a leading writer on the sector for 20 years. He covers big tech, business use of tech, the fast-growing Australian tech industry and start-ups, telecommunications and national innovation policy. Connect with Paul on Twitter. Email Paul at psmith@afr.com
