How People Inc. turned bot blocking into a business
People Inc.'s Jonathan Roberts on blocking bots by default, the 18 Napsters of content, and why AI is spending in the wrong place.
Cloudflare
Can publishers sell ads to bots?
Oasy co-founder Choy Travers on generative engine advertising, the Perplexity cloaking fight, and why licensing deals leave 90 percent of publishers behind.
Cloudflare tightens AI crawler controls for ad-supported publisher sites
Cloudflare will block training and agent crawlers by default on ad-supported pages as it moves toward pay-per-use compensation.
Cloudflare says blocking AI crawlers is pushing publishers into licensing deals
Cloudflare says default AI crawler blocking is creating scarcity that pushes AI companies to license publisher content, and pay-per-use is next.
Time starts building ads for AI agents as bot traffic overtakes humans
Time is placing brand FAQs inside markdown pages aimed at AI crawlers, with Ally Bank and the Project Management Institute among its first buyers.
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Cloudflare’s new plan could change how AI pays publishers
By charging AI companies when content is actually used, Cloudflare hopes to build a more sustainable business model for the open web.
Cloudflare will block AI training crawlers by default on ad-supported sites
The company says new controls will let publishers separate search, agent use and model training
Creators get new say over AI scraping through Cloudflare–beehiiv partnership
Companies say the collaboration enables newsletter publishers to manage AI bot traffic, improve visibility in AI-powered search tools and protect archives
Cloudflare CEO: Bots have overtaken human traffic online
For the first time, bots account for more web traffic than humans, according to Cloudflare data.
New report finds wide disparity in AI tollbooths for publishers
The same companies building AI products that strip publishers of traffic are now writing the rules for AI licensing.