# Cloudflare to block cynical search-and-scrape bots from ad-supported web pages

> This is Cloudflare picking a real fight over who gets to profit from the open web, since forcing publishers to choose between search visibility and AI scraping has been a rigged game for anyone who is not Google. The rebrand sounds modest but it is actually an attempt to build the toll booth content creators have wanted since AI answers started eating their traffic. Whether it works depends entirely on whether publishers actually flip the default, so this fight is far from over.

_Section: [Daily AI Updates](https://www.wortins.com/daily-ai) · Source: TheNextWeb · Published Saturday, July 4, 2026_

## Wortins' read

This is Cloudflare picking a real fight over who gets to profit from the open web, since forcing publishers to choose between search visibility and AI scraping has been a rigged game for anyone who is not Google. The rebrand sounds modest but it is actually an attempt to build the toll booth content creators have wanted since AI answers started eating their traffic. Whether it works depends entirely on whether publishers actually flip the default, so this fight is far from over.

## Source

[Read the full story at TheNextWeb](https://thenextweb.com/news/cloudflare-block-ai-crawlers-pay-publishers)

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_Curated and written by [Wortins](https://www.wortins.com) — The daily AI briefing. Every story links to its original source; the "Wortins read" on each is our own original analysis. [About Wortins & our editorial approach](https://www.wortins.com/about)._