- Cloudflare and web browsers to develop a new Internet protocol
- The PACT protocol will help verify legitimate web access by humans and bots
- Users will receive an anonymized “personality” token to show that they have a genuine reason to access a website.
Now that bot traffic on the Internet has officially surpassed human HTTP requests, web browsers and web infrastructure providers agree that something needs to be done, especially as AI agents enter the fray.
Today, Cloudflare announced a joint initiative with Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome and Microsoft Edge to launch a new Internet protocol designed to verify whether web access is legitimate or malicious, without infringing on user privacy.
Private Access Control Tokens (PACT) will act as anonymous tokens that verify legitimate access of humans and authorized agents without the need for user logins or CAPTCHAs that cause friction and detract from the browsing experience.
Cloudflare establishes PACT with web browsers
For starters, PACT will not completely deny access to automated traffic. According to Cloudflare, the protocol is designed to recognize legitimate access from certain bots. As consumers and businesses turn to the new automations provided by AI agents, there are still legitimate arguments for allowing certain bots to access websites.
For many AI agents, there is always a human at some point in the loop with a real reason for accessing a website. PACT offers an anonymous “personality” token that is attached to the user’s browser. This token uses “trusted information from contexts that have authentic relationships with people” to verify legitimate access “while keeping that information private.”
StatCounter estimates the combined market share of Chrome, Firefox and Edge at around 77%, meaning PACT will likely roll out to the majority of internet users.
“PACT will enable businesses to identify genuine visitors, allowing them to focus their resources on the traffic they care about,” CloudFlare said in the announcement. “Using PACT on the Cloudflare network raises the bar for online reliability and integrity, without the traditional costs. »
“In commerce, every additional challenge, delay, or false positive can turn a purchase into an abandoned cart. Merchants need effective protections against automated abuse, but shoppers shouldn’t have to pay for them with unnecessary friction or invasive tracking,” said Ilya Grigorik, Distinguished Engineer at Shopify.
“Shopify is proud to help develop PACT as an open, privacy-respecting standard that can help the millions of businesses on our platform distinguish legitimate buyers and authorized agents from abusive traffic while maintaining buyer privacy. »
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