The IAB is officially anti-scraping—at least when it comes to AI.
That position was reinforced this week as the organization unveiled draft legislation at IAB ALM. Dubbed the AI Accountability for Publishers Act, the proposal is designed to address what it describes as “large-scale scraping” of publisher content by AI companies and systems.
According to IAB President and CEO David Cohen, AI-driven scraping represents “an existential crisis for publishers,” particularly when content is being collected and reused “often without paying a dime.”
To that end, the IAB called AI scraping “unjust enrichment,” arguing that AI companies are free-riding on publisher investments while undermining the economic model that funds the open web. The IAB’s core argument is straightforward: if publishers disappear, the ad-supported internet disappears with them. And if that happens, AI systems eventually lose the very content they depend on for training and relevance.
Why This Matters:
AI-based scraping of publisher content has exploded. Data from Tollbit shows AI scrapes per site have doubled quarter over quarter, while scrapes per page have tripled. Unauthorized scraping alone is up 40%.
The net effect is that publisher content is increasingly being siphoned off to train AI systems and power AI-generated summaries, often without attribution, traffic, or compensation. If AI chatbots become the primary source of information, the traditional ad-supported model starts to break down entirely.
To add insult to injury, many of the same AI platforms now cannibalizing publisher traffic are beginning to launch advertising products of their own—effectively competing with the ad model that sustained the internet in the first place. Brutal.
Experts React:
Here are some reactions and posts about the proposed legislation from X:
Our Take:
This is serious, substantive legislation—and one of the strongest signals yet that the ad and publishing industries are done playing defense on AI.
That said, two questions loom large.
First: can the IAB actually pull this off? What meaningful, industry-shaping legislation has it successfully pushed through in recent years—especially at this scale, and with staying power? Fair or not, there’s a broader perception problem here. Years of bad ad experiences have made large swaths of consumers hostile to advertising, which limits the industry’s political power.
Second: is this ultimately anti-consumer? That’s a fair question, no? Consumers are embracing chatbots in massive numbers. If AI companies are required to pay publishers, costs will rise—and that likely means higher prices, fewer free options, and consolidation around the biggest players who can afford licensing deals.
None of this invalidates the IAB’s position. But it does underscore the tradeoffs. Protecting publishers may be necessary to preserve the open web, but it won’t come without cost or friction.
