When Cloudflare rel=”nofollow” href=”http://When%20web%20infrastructure%20giant%20Cloudflare%20accused%20AI%20search%20engine%20Perplexity%20of%20stealthily%20scraping%20websites%20and%20ignoring%20crawling%20restrictions%20this%20week,%20it%20seemed%20like%20a%20clear-cut%20case%20of%20AI%20misbehavior.%20Cloudflare,%20which%20provides%20security%20and%20performance%20services%20to%20millions%20of%20websites,%20has%20unique%20visibility%20into%20internet%20traffic%20patterns%E2%80%94giving%20the%20company%20unusual%20authority%20to%20call%20out%20bad%20actors.%20But%20the%20ensuing%20debate%20has%20revealed%20this%20isn’t%20a%20simple%20case%20of%20an%20internet%20watchdog%20catching%20a%20rogue%20AI%20crawler.%20The%20controversy%20centers%20on%20a%20fundamental%20question%20that%20will%20only%20grow%20more%20pressing%20as%20AI%20agents%20flood%20the%20internet:%20Is%20an%20AI%20agent%20accessing%20a%20website%20on%20behalf%20of%20a%20user%20the%20same%20as%20that%20user%20visiting%20the%20site%20directly?”>accused AI search engine Perplexity of stealthily scraping websites on Monday, while ignoring a site’s specific methods to block it, this wasn’t a clear-cut case of an AI web crawler gone wild.
