Cloudflare Unveils ‘Easy Button’ for AI Bot Blocking

Cloudflare has launched Easy Button, a tool designed to block artificial intelligence bots. This initiative responds to the growing use of generative AI (GenAI) and concerns about unauthorized access to content. 

According to Cloudflare's press release, the decision to develop this tool addresses increasing worries among content creators regarding the misuse of their data and the lack of transparency from certain AI bot operators. 

"In a context where GenAI has heightened the demand for content for model training and inference execution, control over who accesses this data and how becomes critical," says Cloudflare.

Since Cloudflare's announcement last year allowing customers to block AI bots that comply with established regulations, such as adhering to the robots.txt file and refraining from using unlicensed content, the company reports a significant trend among its users in utilizing this capability. 

"We have clearly heard that customers do not want AI bots to visit their websites, even those that do so dishonestly, as they can pose risks to the integrity and security of the content," the company emphasized.

Data gathered by Cloudflare reveal that some of the most active AI bots include Bytespider, Amazonbot, ClaudeBot and GPTBot, which are employed to gather extensive volumes of training data or to perform inferences for advanced AI applications. These bots, operated by companies like ByteDance and OpenAI, have been among the most frequently blocked by Cloudflare users.

"Despite the availability of the robots.txt file and other control measures, many website owners are unaware of the impact these bots can have on their operations," notes the press release. 

To counter evasion techniques employed AI bots, Cloudflare utilizes global machine learning models capable of identifying and scoring suspicious traffic, even when user agents are altered to mimic conventional browsers.