- Cloudflare and web browsers to develop a new Internet protocol
- PACT protocol will help verify legitimate web access by humans and robots
- Users will receive an anonymous “personality” token to prove that they have a real reason to access a website.
Now that bot traffic on the Internet has officially surpassed human HTTP requests, both web browsers and web infrastructure providers agree that something needs to be done, especially as AI agents enter the scene.
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 invading user privacy.
Private Access Control Tokens (PACT) will act as anonymous tokens that verify legitimate access by both humans and authorized agents without the need for user logins or CAPTCHAs that cause friction and harm 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 new automations provided by AI agents, there are still legitimate arguments for allowing certain bots to access websites.
For many AI agents, there is still a human being somewhere 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 puts the combined market share of Chrome, Firefox, and Edge at around 77%, meaning that the PACT protocol will likely be implemented for the majority of internet users.
“PACT will further enable businesses to identify genuine visitors, ensuring they can focus their resources on the traffic that matters to them,” CloudFlare said in the announcement. “Using PACT on Cloudflare’s network raises the level of 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-preserving standard that can help millions of businesses on our platform distinguish legitimate buyers and authorized agents from abusive traffic, while preserving buyer privacy.”
Follow TechRadar on Google News and add us as a preferred source to receive news, reviews and opinions from our experts in your feeds.
