Cloudflares action against Perplexity AI highligh

Cloudflare’s action against Perplexity AI highlights a key tension in the AI world: balancing data access with web standards adherence. I’m on team Perplexity because I wouldn’t differentiate between Perplexity app the Comet browser - it’s browsing on my behalf. An investigation revealed Perplexity’s use of stealth tactics to bypass `robots.txt` and firewall rules, using generic user agents and rotating IPs across ASNs. Perplexity argues that their agents fetch content in real-time for users, comparing it to a browser accessing content, and claim Cloudflare may have misattributed third-party traffic. This raises a broader issue: how AI agents, fetching data dynamically, blur the lines between automated bots and user-driven access. I personally think that AI dependence on web data grows, clear guidelines are essential to distinguish between scrapers and legitimate user-driven AI agents while respecting content creators’ preferences. I think what Perplexity says actually makes sense.