The web does not need gatekeepers: Cloudflare’s new “signed agents” pitch

Everyone loves the dream of a free for all and open web.

But the reality is how can someone small protect their blog or content from AI training bots? E.g.: They just blindly trust someone is sending Agent vs Training bots and super duper respecting robots.txt? Get real...

Or, fine what if they do respect robots.txt, but they buy the data that may or may not have been shielded through liability layers via "licensed data"?

Unless you're reddit, X, Google, or Meta with scary unlimited budget legal teams, you have no power.

Great video: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/M0QyOp7zqcY

> Everyone loves the dream of a free for all and open web.

> protect their blog or content from AI training bots

It strikes me that one needs to chose one of these as their visionary future.

Specifically: a free and open web is one where read access is unfettered to humans and AI training bots alike.

So much of the friction and malfunction of the web stems from efforts to exert control over the flow (and reuse) of information. But this is in conflict with the strengths of a free and open web, chief of which is the stone cold reality that bytes can trivially be copied and distributed permissionlessly for all time.