Publishers are taking new legal steps to stop AI bots from scraping their content. Trusted Reviews is now enforcing search-only contracts and tracking violations. The move could reshape how tech giants access publisher data.
Trusted Reviews, a leading consumer technology site owned by Candr Media, is escalating its fight against AI bots that scrape and repurpose its content. The publisher has introduced search-only contracts in its website terms, aiming to restrict large language model (LLM) companies and third-party scrapers from using its material without payment.
Chris Dicker, CEO of Candr, said the company has identified a long list of bots-including Oxy Labs, Gina AI, Zen Rose, Scrape AI, Zite, Scrapeless, Scrape Stack, Hyper Browser, Exa, and Bright Data-regularly extracting content from Trusted Reviews. Many of these scrapers, he explained, resell the data to LLM providers such as OpenAI, Google, and Meta, who also deploy their own bots to access the site directly.
Despite working with Cloudflare and Tollbit to monitor and block bot activity, Dicker reported that scraping attempts remain relentless. After other measures failed, Candr added a notice to Trusted Reviews stating that access by LLMs is subject to a contractual payment obligation. The company now tracks violations and is prepared to invoice offenders £500 per article, with the option to pursue debt recovery through the UK small-claims court system.
Dicker noted that some tech firms argue facts are not protected by copyright, but the new contracts-developed with the Movement for an Open Web-focus on terms and conditions law instead. He believes this approach leaves less room for legal ambiguity.
Trusted Reviews, established in 2003, has built its reputation on in-depth product reviews, often based on weeks of hands-on testing. About 18 months ago, Dicker realized that AI companies were harvesting this content at scale, causing significant operational and financial strain. On one occasion, OpenAI bots reportedly hit the site 1.6 million times in a single day, overwhelming servers and driving up hosting costs, while only 300 actual website visits were attributed to ChatGPT users.
Efforts to contact OpenAI directly, including emails and phone calls, went unanswered, Dicker said. He described the lack of response as frustrating, especially given the scale of the scraping and the absence of any value exchange for publishers.
The ongoing scraping has forced Candr to rethink its content strategy, particularly for evergreen guides and how-to articles that are quickly copied and replaced by LLMs. Dicker said the impact on traffic has been severe, echoing patterns seen across major UK and US publisher sites. He argued that AI companies are breaking the law by taking content without permission, but acknowledged that most publishers lack the resources to challenge tech giants in court.
Instead, Candr is focusing on documenting violations and considering legal action against both LLM providers and third-party scrapers. Dicker criticized the current system, where AI companies refuse direct licensing deals with publishers but purchase scraped data from intermediaries, fueling what he described as a billion-dollar industry.
He advised other publishers to implement similar terms and conditions, collect evidence of violations, and use free legal resources provided by the Movement for an Open Web. Dicker emphasized that these contracts do not block legitimate search traffic, allowing publishers to maintain their visibility while protecting their content from unauthorized use.
Legal and regulatory pressure on tech platforms is mounting globally. For example, the UK’s competition authority recently ordered Google to make its search rankings fairer for publishers and businesses, as detailed in this report on new rules for Google’s search transparency.
