Bot Management

Do you only detect bots that declare themselves, or do you also identify those trying to remain hidden or undeclared?

We primarily focus on the big, self-identified bots, think ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude, the well-known players. These large players generally self-identify clearly in their user agents, although that doesn't necessarily mean they're always behaving correctly.

For bots that actively hide themselves or pretend to be human browsers – like the long tail of undeclared scrapers -- we partner with specialized cybersecurity tools (such as Datadome and Human Security). Those tools have advanced fingerprinting and machine-learning algorithms that detect even the most elusive bots.

How frequently is the bot list updated? What happens when new bots appear?

Today, we generally update our bot lists every quarter, and we communicate new crawlers through email or our quarterly reports. Ideally, publishers would then manually update their edge configurations or robots.txt files.

Is TollBit a bot protection solution, or is it more about monetization?

We're primarily a monetization and enforcement solution rather than purely a cybersecurity play. We're not competing with products like DataDome or Human Security. Our recommendation to publishers is typically to use those types of advanced bot detection tools alongside TollBit. So, TollBit handles monetization, billing, and stronger enforcement of content usage terms, while a cybersecurity tool would handle protection from malicious, anonymous bots.

We have partnerships with both Datadome and Human Security, and integrate with their tooling seamlessly. For those interested in advanced bot detection, please reach out to your TollBit account manager.