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
Google’s AI opt-out leaves publishers with a choice they can’t safely use
The CMA has, on paper, given publishers a right to refuse AI in search. But because it’s opt-out, and Google is slow-walking the data needed to judge the impact, that right is barely usable, publishers say.
YouTube’s AI remix push exposes a looming reckoning for the creator economy
YouTube’s Gemini Omni integration has highlighted some of the major problems generative AI poses in the creator economy.
Why creator Lola Torres prefers the stability of affiliate marketing over brand partnerships
Creator Lola Torres on the hustle of building her career in affiliate marketing, the challenge of creator programs, and more.