Cloudflare, Chrome, Edge, Firefox team on PACT protocol

A coalition of major internet infrastructure and browser companies has announced a joint initiative to develop a new privacy-preserving protocol designed to distinguish legitimate web traffic from malicious bots. Cloudflare, in partnership with the teams behind Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge, Mozilla Firefox, and e-commerce platform Shopify, is developing Private Access Control Tokens (PACT). The protocol aims to reduce reliance on intrusive verification methods like CAPTCHAs and forced logins while addressing the growing volume of automated traffic online.

The announcement follows data from Cloudflare indicating that automated systems now generate roughly 58 percent of HTTP requests to web content worldwide, surpassing human activity. Company executives noted the rise of "agentic AI" programs acting on behalf of users has accelerated this trend.

PACT is designed to allow websites with a trusted relationship with a user, such as a login provider or a frequently visited site, to issue an anonymous digital token. A user's browser can then present this token to other websites as proof that a human is overseeing the session or that an automated agent is authorized, without revealing...