Marketers, Meet the New Internet Business Model
For nearly three decades, the internet operated on a simple agreement: content creators allowed search engines to index their material, and in return, the engines sent visitors to their sites. This exchange, popularized by Google’s early model, powered the growth of content-driven marketing and communications.
On July 1, 2025, that model changed. Cloudflare, the company routing 20 percent of global web traffic, announced that all new customer domains would block AI crawlers by default unless publishers explicitly opt in.
This move, dubbed “Content Independence Day” by Cloudflare CEO Matthew Prince, is more than a technical update. It is a fundamental shift in how the internet values and protects content, and it carries major implications for marketers, publishers and communications professionals.
