{"slug": "terms-txt-a-consent-and-compensation-protocol-for-agentic-web-access", "title": "Terms.txt: A Consent and Compensation Protocol for Agentic Web Access", "summary": "Researchers submitted a paper on 10 Sep 2026 proposing terms.txt, a robots.txt-style file for per-path, per-purpose machine-access terms, plus an origin-enforced exchange using Web Bot Auth signatures, signed intent, delegation tokens, HTTP 402 negotiation, and signed receipts. The paper argues the open web's unwritten bargain between sites and search engines is breaking under AI crawlers and agents, noting automated clients now make up most requests and the largest AI platforms fetch thousands of pages for each visitor they return. A dependency-free implementation adds 0.20 to 0.65 ms per request on one vCPU.", "body_md": "# Computer Science > Networking and Internet Architecture\n\n  [Submitted on 10 Sep 2026]\n\n# Title:terms.txt: A Consent and Compensation Protocol for Agentic Web Access\n\n[View PDF](/pdf/2609.11152)\n\n[HTML (experimental)](https://arxiv.org/html/2609.11152v1)\n\nAbstract:The open web ran on an unwritten bargain: sites admitted crawlers, and search engines sent visitors back. Public measurements show that bargain breaking under AI crawlers and agents. Automated clients now make up most requests, training dominates Cloudflare-classified crawling, and the largest AI platforms fetch thousands of pages for each visitor they return. The web's common control, [this http URL](http://robots.txt), cannot express identity, purpose, terms, or price, can be circumvented, and newer alternatives are largely proprietary CDN features. We specify [this http URL](http://terms.txt), a [this http URL](http://robots.txt)-style file for per-path, per-purpose machine-access terms, plus an origin-enforced exchange using Web Bot Auth signatures, signed intent, delegation tokens, HTTP 402 negotiation, and signed receipts. We define what the exchange can enforce, audit, and leave to contract. A dependency-free implementation adds 0.20 to 0.65 ms per request on one vCPU.\n    \n\n## Submission history\n\nFrom: Rajarshi Chowdhury [\n[view email](/show-email/0aa98375/2609.11152)]\n\n**[v1]** Thu, 10 Sep 2026 07:01:08 UTC (339 KB)\n\n### Current browse context:\n\ncs.NI\n\n### References & Citations\n\nLoading...\n\n# Bibliographic and Citation Tools\n\nBibliographic Explorer \n\n*(*[What is the Explorer?](https://info.arxiv.org/labs/showcase.html#arxiv-bibliographic-explorer))\nConnected Papers \n\n*(*[What is Connected Papers?](https://www.connectedpapers.com/about))\nLitmaps \n\n*(*[What is Litmaps?](https://www.litmaps.co/))\nscite Smart Citations \n\n*(*[What are Smart Citations?](https://www.scite.ai/))\n# Code, Data and Media Associated with this Article\n\nalphaXiv \n\n*(*[What is alphaXiv?](https://alphaxiv.org/))\nCatalyzeX Code Finder for Papers \n\n*(*[What is CatalyzeX?](https://www.catalyzex.com))\nDagsHub \n\n*(*[What is DagsHub?](https://dagshub.com/))\nGotit.pub \n\n*(*[What is GotitPub?](http://gotit.pub/faq))\nHugging Face \n\n*(*[What is Huggingface?](https://huggingface.co/huggingface))\nScienceCast \n\n*(*[What is ScienceCast?](https://sciencecast.org/welcome))\n# Demos\n\n# Recommenders and Search Tools\n\nInfluence Flower \n\n*(*[What are Influence Flowers?](https://influencemap.cmlab.dev/))\nCORE Recommender \n\n*(*[What is CORE?](https://core.ac.uk/services/recommender))\n# arXivLabs: experimental projects with community collaborators\n\narXivLabs is a framework that allows collaborators to develop and share new arXiv features directly on our website.\n\nBoth individuals and organizations that work with arXivLabs have embraced and accepted our values of openness, community, excellence, and user data privacy. arXiv is committed to these values and only works with partners that adhere to them.\n\nHave an idea for a project that will add value for arXiv's community? [**Learn more about arXivLabs**](https://info.arxiv.org/labs/index.html).", "url": "https://wpnews.pro/news/terms-txt-a-consent-and-compensation-protocol-for-agentic-web-access", "canonical_source": "https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.11152", "published_at": "2026-09-12 02:07:07+00:00", "updated_at": "2026-09-12 02:27:53.425103+00:00", "lang": "en", "topics": ["ai-agents", "ai-policy", "artificial-intelligence"], "entities": ["Web Bot Auth", "HTTP 402", "Cloudflare", "Rajarshi Chowdhury", "arXiv"], "alternates": {"html": "https://wpnews.pro/news/terms-txt-a-consent-and-compensation-protocol-for-agentic-web-access", "markdown": "https://wpnews.pro/news/terms-txt-a-consent-and-compensation-protocol-for-agentic-web-access.md", "text": "https://wpnews.pro/news/terms-txt-a-consent-and-compensation-protocol-for-agentic-web-access.txt", "jsonld": "https://wpnews.pro/news/terms-txt-a-consent-and-compensation-protocol-for-agentic-web-access.jsonld"}}