This article is a WTF explainer, in which we break down media and marketing’s most confusing terms. More from the series →
Publishers have a new tool in their efforts to limit AI’s threat to their businesses. And it’s from the company behind one of the predominant threats.
In August, OpenAI announced that website owners can now block its GPTBot web crawler from accessing their webpages’ content. Since then, 12% of the 1000 most-visited sites online have done so, according to Originality AI. The list of sites shutting themselves off to OpenAI’s web crawlers includes publishers such as Bloomberg, CNN and The New York Times.
As Digiday has covered, publishers have had a hard time protecting against generative AI tools like ChatGPT sidestepping their paywalls and siphoning their content to inform the large language models. OpenAI’s announcement, however, makes that undertaking much easier.
For those unfamiliar with what a web crawler like OpenAI’s GPTBot is, not to mention how websites are able block their access, check out the explainer video skit below.
More in Media
Digiday+ Research: Nearly half of publishers report an increase in referral traffic from social
Nearly half of publishers have seen an increase over the last year in the referral traffic they get from social media platforms, according to a Digiday+ Research survey.
Boston Globe, Future, Vox Media join ProRata’s generative AI licensing model
A fresh wave of publishers have signed up for ProRata’s revenue share program, and some are adding its AI search engine to their sites.
Media Briefing: Affiliate isn’t dead, say publishers – but it must evolve in the AI era
Publishers say affiliate and commerce businesses need to evolve in the AI search era.