A new standard is being set for digital content. Cloudflare has officially de-listed Perplexity AI from its verified bot program and implemented blocking measures against what it characterises as deceptive web scraping practices.

Cloudflare has fired the first shot in the fight against the AI extraction economy, shifting from access by default to permission based for 25% of the internet. This move empowers publishers to block, monetise, or selectively allow AI crawlers.