The foundational agreement that underpinned the modern internet, where content creators allowed companies like Google to scrape their sites in exchange for traffic, is officially over. On July 1, Cloudflare declared “Content Independence Day,” announcing a policy to block AI crawlers from accessing websites unless they compensate the content creators. This shift highlights the growing concern over AI, which has begun to diminish traffic to original sources while extracting vast amounts of information. Cloudflare aims to create a marketplace where AI companies can directly trade with content creators, valuing data based on its utility for training AI instead of clicks. This move signals a drastic change in the web ecosystem, marking the rise of a new economic model that could challenge the open web’s traditional nature. However, it raises questions about value determination and the potential fragmentation of the internet, potentially leading to a “content Cold War” between publishers and AI firms.
Source link
Share
Read more