AI is trained on your images and websites, but there are evolving ways to block it

November 3rd, 2025

The internet has always had bots on it.

Search engines like Google, for instance, have been using automated “crawlers” for decades to build indexes, so that websites show up when you search for certain terms.

But a new generation of crawlers, used to train generative AI, is starting to threaten much of the web’s economy.

These technologies undermine the business models of huge numbers of websites, and raise concerns for privacy.

But it is possible to stop them from absorbing your material. To a point.