Cloudflare, Mozilla, Google, Microsoft join forces to end CAPTCHAs

iGuRu.gr > Cloudflare, Mozilla, Google, Microsoft join forces to end CAPTCHAs

Cloudflare, Mozilla, Google, Microsoft, and Shopify are developing PACT, a privacy-first protocol for verifying the legitimacy of online traffic. security

Cloudflare has announced a joint initiative with Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome, and Microsoft Edge to develop a new internet protocol that verifies whether web traffic is legitimate without tracking users. The protocol, called Private Access Control Tokens, is designed to replace CAPTCHAs and forced logins with anonymous tokens that prove that a visitor is a human or an authorized bot. Shopify co-developed the technology, and the team plans to submit it for formal standardization.

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The announcement comes as bot traffic has officially surpassed human activity on the internet. Cloudflare Radar data shows that automated systems now account for about 58% of HTTP requests to web content worldwide, compared to 42% coming from humans. Cloudflare CEO Matthew Prince shared the milestone on June 3, noting that AI programs browsing on behalf of assistants like ChatGPT and Gemini have accelerated the growth of bot traffic about 18 months earlier than he had previously predicted.

PACT will work by allowing websites to distinguish a visitor's identity and issue anonymous tokens. A user's browser will store the token and can present it to other websites as proof that there is a real person behind the session, reducing the need for repeated authentication checks. The protocol is designed so that the token cannot be used to track users or reconstruct their browsing history.

The initiative does not aim to block all automated traffic. PACT aims to distinguish authorized AI agents from malicious scrapers and abuse bots, not to end automation altogether.

Browser makers have called the effort essential to the open web. Bobby Holley, CTO for Firefox at Mozilla, said an “avalanche of automated traffic” is pushing websites to adopt difficult defenses like paywalls, identity checks and invasive tracking. Erik Anderson, engineering director for Microsoft Edge, called it an effective privacy tool critical to fighting abuse without unnecessary friction with users.