Cloudflare, Google, Shopify Launch PACT for AI Bot Management

Image credit: Search Engine Journal

Cloudflare, Google and Shopify launched a new privacy-preserving protocol, Private Access Control Tokens (PACT), Tuesday to standardize artificial intelligence bot management and reduce user friction online.

The global initiative aims to enable legitimate AI bots to interact with websites by verifying human involvement, thereby facilitating beneficial AI agent functionality while blocking malicious automated traffic.

Major browser developers, including Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge and Mozilla Firefox, are supporting the development of PACT alongside e-commerce giant Shopify.

Ilya Grigorik, a distinguished engineer and technical advisor at Shopify, stated that PACT helps merchants increase sales and protect their online stores from abusive bots without compromising user privacy.

The protocol is designed to replace traditional anti-bot defenses, such as CAPTCHAs and invasive tracking methods, by allowing websites with established ‘personhood’ knowledge to issue anonymous tokens for user verification.

These tokens would confirm a user’s legitimacy without tracking their browsing history, Cloudflare said.

Cloudflare emphasized that PACT seeks to enhance overall online trust and privacy by creating a more secure and less intrusive method for managing AI agents across the internet.

Source: Search Engine Journal