AI crawler wars threaten to make the web more closed for everyone
SMRTR summary
The internet faces a crisis as AI web crawlers threaten its open nature. Websites are blocking crawlers, fearing AI competition, leading to legal battles, new anti-crawling tech, and exclusive data deals. This trend risks fragmenting the internet, limiting information access, and concentrating power in big tech companies. Small creators may hide content behind paywalls or remove it, while researchers and journalists could lose access to vital web data.
SMRTR provides this summary for quick context. The original article belongs to MIT Technology Review.
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