Overview

• Cloudflare enacted its July 3 Content Independence Day policy to default-block AI bots such as Google’s Gemini from the 20% of websites it protects
• The new pay-per-crawl framework requires AI firms to purchase crawl credits to legally scrape content instead of relying on free indexing
• CEO Matthew Prince is demanding that Google offer distinct crawler endpoints for AI features like Answer Box and AI Overviews to preserve standard search visibility
• Google has declined to confirm whether it is negotiating with Cloudflare or willing to split its crawler infrastructure for AI and search
• Cloudflare says it will pursue legal requirements for crawler separation if voluntary measures fail to ensure fair compensation for content creators