{ "title": "How we got here: people and machines on the internet, 1942 to today", "generated": "2026-11-07", "rules": "Events: dated, one source each, checked by opening the page. Series: measured values only, shown only where the data exists; gaps are left empty.", "notes": [ "Nobody measured human vs bot web traffic before about 2012. We looked. So before then, we show what was counted: hosts, websites and bot edits.", "Connected devices: we found no free, measured world count, so there's no line for it." ], "events": [ { "id": "asimov", "date": "1942-03", "title": "Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics", "text": "Isaac Asimov's story \"Runaround\" lists all three Laws of Robotics. It ran in Astounding Science Fiction.", "side": "both", "fiction": true, "rules": true, "src": "Wikipedia: Runaround (story)", "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Runaround_(story)", "also": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Laws_of_Robotics", "checked": { "date": "2026-11-07", "status": 200 } }, { "id": "intergalactic", "date": "1962", "title": "The \"Intergalactic Network\"", "text": "J.C.R. Licklider dreams up a network linking everyone on the globe. Any program, any data, from anywhere.", "side": "people", "src": "Computer History Museum", "url": "https://www.computerhistory.org/internethistory/1960s/", "checked": { "date": "2026-11-07", "status": 200 } }, { "id": "syncom", "date": "1963", "title": "First synchronous satellite", "text": "NASA launches Syncom, the first synchronous communication satellite. Its payload weighs just 55 pounds.", "side": "both", "src": "Computer History Museum", "url": "https://www.computerhistory.org/internethistory/1960s/", "checked": { "date": "2026-11-07", "status": 200 } }, { "id": "moore", "date": "1965", "title": "Moore's Law", "text": "Gordon Moore predicts chips will keep doubling their parts. Every machine since rides that curve.", "side": "machines", "src": "Computer History Museum", "url": "https://www.computerhistory.org/siliconengine/moores-law-predicts-the-future-of-integrated-circuits/", "checked": { "date": "2026-11-07", "status": 200 } }, { "id": "earlybird", "date": "1965-04-06", "title": "Early Bird goes up", "text": "Intelsat I, nicknamed \"Early Bird\", launches. It's the first commercial communications satellite.", "side": "both", "src": "Wikipedia: Intelsat I", "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelsat_I", "checked": { "date": "2026-11-07", "status": 200 } }, { "id": "eliza", "date": "1966", "title": "ELIZA, the first chatbot", "text": "Joseph Weizenbaum's ELIZA at MIT fakes a conversation by matching patterns. People talk to a machine.", "side": "machines", "src": "Wikipedia: ELIZA", "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ELIZA", "checked": { "date": "2026-11-07", "status": 200 } }, { "id": "arpanet", "date": "1969-10-29", "title": "ARPANET's first connection", "text": "UCLA connects to SRI, computer to computer. The first login crashes the other computer. The second try works.", "side": "people", "src": "Computer History Museum", "url": "https://www.computerhistory.org/internethistory/1960s/", "wow": true, "checked": { "date": "2026-11-07", "status": 200 } }, { "id": "creeper", "date": "1971", "title": "Creeper, the first worm", "text": "A test program hops from computer to computer on the ARPANET. Someone writes Reaper to chase it.", "side": "machines", "src": "Wikipedia: Creeper and Reaper", "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creeper_and_Reaper", "checked": { "date": "2026-11-07", "status": 200 } }, { "id": "email", "date": "1972", "title": "Email gets its @", "text": "Ray Tomlinson sends mail over the ARPANET. He picks the @ sign for user@host.", "side": "people", "src": "Computer History Museum", "url": "https://www.computerhistory.org/internethistory/1970s/", "checked": { "date": "2026-11-07", "status": 200 } }, { "id": "elizaparry", "date": "1972", "title": "Two bots talk to each other", "text": "At a 1972 demo, chatbot ELIZA chats with PARRY, a program playing a paranoid patient. A computer talks to a computer.", "side": "machines", "src": "Computer History Museum", "url": "https://www.computerhistory.org/internethistory/1970s/", "wow": true, "checked": { "date": "2026-11-07", "status": 200 } }, { "id": "satlink", "date": "1973", "title": "The network crosses the sea", "text": "A satellite link connects the ARPANET to Norway and the UK.", "side": "both", "src": "Computer History Museum", "url": "https://www.computerhistory.org/internethistory/1970s/", "checked": { "date": "2026-11-07", "status": 200 } }, { "id": "cellphone", "date": "1973-04-03", "title": "First handheld mobile phone", "text": "Motorola shows off the first working handheld cell phone, the DynaTAC. The demo is in New York.", "side": "people", "src": "Motorola Solutions", "url": "https://www.motorolasolutions.com/en_us/about/company-overview/history/explore-motorola-heritage/cell-phone-development.html", "checked": { "date": "2026-11-07", "status": 200 } }, { "id": "tcp", "date": "1973-09", "title": "TCP is born", "text": "Bob Kahn and Vint Cerf present the first paper on TCP. It's a way to join different networks.", "side": "both", "src": "Computer History Museum", "url": "https://www.computerhistory.org/internethistory/1970s/", "checked": { "date": "2026-11-07", "status": 200 } }, { "id": "spam", "date": "1978-05-03", "title": "The first spam", "text": "A DEC sales pitch lands in hundreds of ARPANET inboxes at once. Angry replies arrive straight away.", "side": "both", "src": "Brad Templeton", "url": "https://www.templetons.com/brad/spamreact.html", "checked": { "date": "2026-11-07", "status": 200 } }, { "id": "ntt", "date": "1979", "title": "First commercial cellular network", "text": "NTT opens the first commercial cellular network, in Japan. It starts in Tokyo.", "side": "people", "src": "Wikipedia: 1G", "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1G", "checked": { "date": "2026-11-07", "status": 200 } }, { "id": "nmt", "date": "1981-10-01", "title": "Mobile phones cross borders", "text": "Nordic Mobile Telephone opens. One network now covers several Nordic countries.", "side": "people", "src": "Wikipedia: Nordic Mobile Telephone", "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nordic_Mobile_Telephone", "checked": { "date": "2026-11-07", "status": 200 } }, { "id": "flagday", "date": "1983-01-01", "title": "TCP/IP flag day", "text": "Every ARPANET host switches to TCP/IP on the same day. Anyone who doesn't gets cut off.", "side": "both", "src": "Internet Society", "url": "https://www.internetsociety.org/internet/history-internet/brief-history-internet/", "wow": true, "checked": { "date": "2026-11-07", "status": 200 } }, { "id": "amps", "date": "1983-10-13", "title": "Cellular comes to the Americas", "text": "AMPS launches, built by Bell Labs and Motorola. It's the first cellular service in the Americas.", "side": "people", "src": "Wikipedia: AMPS", "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Mobile_Phone_System", "checked": { "date": "2026-11-07", "status": 200 } }, { "id": "dns", "date": "1983-11", "title": "Names instead of numbers", "text": "Paul Mockapetris publishes the Domain Name System. Computers get names like example.com.", "side": "both", "src": "RFC 882 (IETF)", "url": "https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc882", "checked": { "date": "2026-11-07", "status": 200 } }, { "id": "dotcom", "date": "1985-03-15", "title": "The first .com", "text": "Someone registers symbolics.com. It's the first .com domain in the world.", "side": "people", "src": "Wikipedia: Symbolics", "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symbolics", "checked": { "date": "2026-11-07", "status": 200 } }, { "id": "morris", "date": "1988", "title": "The Morris worm", "text": "A worm gets into about 6,000 of the internet's 60,000 computers. The first CERT team forms to handle the next one.", "side": "machines", "src": "Computer History Museum", "url": "https://www.computerhistory.org/internethistory/1980s/", "checked": { "date": "2026-11-07", "status": 200 } }, { "id": "wwwproposal", "date": "1989-03", "title": "A proposal for the web", "text": "Tim Berners-Lee writes \"Information Management: A Proposal\" at CERN. It's the plan for the World Wide Web.", "side": "people", "src": "W3C", "url": "https://www.w3.org/History/1989/proposal.html", "checked": { "date": "2026-11-07", "status": 200 } }, { "id": "arpaoff", "date": "1990", "title": "ARPANET switches off", "text": "In twenty years the net grew from 4 hosts to over 300,000. Search tools like Archie appear.", "side": "both", "src": "Computer History Museum", "url": "https://www.computerhistory.org/internethistory/1990s/", "checked": { "date": "2026-11-07", "status": 200 } }, { "id": "www", "date": "1991-08", "title": "The web goes public", "text": "Tim Berners-Lee posts the web software online and announces it on Usenet. The first website lives at info.cern.ch.", "side": "people", "src": "W3C: History of the web project", "url": "https://www.w3.org/History.html", "wow": true, "checked": { "date": "2026-11-07", "status": 200 } }, { "id": "gsm", "date": "1991-12", "title": "GSM, digital mobile", "text": "GSM goes live first in Finland. It becomes the world's standard for mobile phones.", "side": "people", "src": "Wikipedia: GSM", "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GSM", "checked": { "date": "2026-11-07", "status": 200 } }, { "id": "million", "date": "1992", "title": "One million computers", "text": "Computers on the internet pass 1,000,000.", "side": "machines", "src": "Computer History Museum", "url": "https://www.computerhistory.org/internethistory/1990s/", "checked": { "date": "2026-11-07", "status": 200 } }, { "id": "sms", "date": "1992-12-03", "title": "The first text message", "text": "Neil Papworth sends \"Merry Christmas\" from a computer to a colleague's phone. It's the first SMS.", "side": "people", "src": "Wikipedia: SMS", "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SMS", "checked": { "date": "2026-11-07", "status": 200 } }, { "id": "publicdomain", "date": "1993-04-30", "title": "CERN gives the web away", "text": "CERN puts the web software in the public domain. Anyone can use it for free.", "side": "people", "src": "CERN", "url": "https://home.cern/news/news/computing/30-years-free-and-open-web", "checked": { "date": "2026-11-07", "status": 200 } }, { "id": "wanderer", "date": "1993-06", "title": "The first web crawler", "text": "Matthew Gray at MIT sends a bot, the Wanderer, to count the web. It finds 130 sites.", "side": "machines", "src": "Wikipedia: World Wide Web Wanderer", "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Wide_Web_Wanderer", "also": "http://www.mit.edu/~mkgray/net/web-growth-summary.html", "wow": true, "checked": { "date": "2026-11-07", "status": 200 } }, { "id": "greencard", "date": "1994-04-12", "title": "Spam goes big", "text": "Two lawyers post one ad to thousands of Usenet groups at once. It's the first massive commercial spam.", "side": "both", "src": "Wikipedia: Canter and Siegel", "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laurence_Canter_and_Martha_Siegel", "checked": { "date": "2026-11-07", "status": 200 } }, { "id": "webcrawler", "date": "1994-04-20", "title": "WebCrawler searches the web", "text": "WebCrawler launches. It's one of the oldest search engines, and it's still running.", "side": "machines", "src": "Wikipedia: WebCrawler", "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WebCrawler", "checked": { "date": "2026-11-07", "status": 200 } }, { "id": "robots", "date": "1994-06-30", "title": "robots.txt: rules for robots", "text": "Bot makers agree on a simple file that says where crawlers may not go. People write the rules. Bots choose whether to obey.", "side": "both", "src": "robotstxt.org", "url": "https://www.robotstxt.org/orig.html", "wow": true, "rules": true, "checked": { "date": "2026-11-07", "status": 200 } }, { "id": "deepblue", "date": "1997-05", "title": "Deep Blue beats Kasparov", "text": "IBM's Deep Blue beats the reigning world chess champion in a match. No computer had done that before.", "side": "machines", "src": "IBM", "url": "https://www.ibm.com/history/deep-blue", "checked": { "date": "2026-11-07", "status": 200 } }, { "id": "akamai", "date": "1998", "title": "Akamai is founded", "text": "Akamai starts up in Cambridge, Massachusetts. It copies websites onto many servers so pages load fast.", "side": "machines", "player": "Akamai", "src": "Wikipedia: Akamai Technologies", "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akamai_Technologies", "checked": { "date": "2026-11-07", "status": 200 } }, { "id": "google", "date": "1998-08", "title": "Google Inc. is founded", "text": "Larry Page and Sergey Brin turn their search engine into a company. It was first called Backrub.", "side": "machines", "src": "Google", "url": "https://about.google/our-story/", "player": "Google", "checked": { "date": "2026-11-07", "status": 200 } }, { "id": "blackberry", "date": "1999", "title": "The BlackBerry", "text": "The first BlackBerry devices arrive. Email starts following people everywhere.", "side": "people", "src": "Wikipedia: BlackBerry Limited", "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BlackBerry_Limited", "checked": { "date": "2026-11-07", "status": 200 } }, { "id": "imode", "date": "1999-02-22", "title": "The internet in your pocket", "text": "NTT Docomo launches i-mode in Japan. Email and web pages now fit on a phone.", "side": "people", "src": "Wikipedia: i-mode", "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I-mode", "checked": { "date": "2026-11-07", "status": 200 } }, { "id": "gprs", "date": "2000", "title": "GPRS: always-on mobile data", "text": "BT Cellnet in the UK launches the first commercial GPRS data service. Phones stay online.", "side": "both", "src": "Wikipedia: GPRS", "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Packet_Radio_Service", "checked": { "date": "2026-11-07", "status": 200 } }, { "id": "wikipedia", "date": "2001-01-15", "title": "Wikipedia starts", "text": "A free encyclopedia anyone can edit goes live. Its edit log becomes a great record of bots at work.", "side": "people", "src": "Wikipedia: About", "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:About", "checked": { "date": "2026-11-07", "status": 200 } }, { "id": "foma", "date": "2001-10", "title": "First 3G network", "text": "NTT Docomo launches FOMA in Japan. It's the first commercial 3G mobile service.", "side": "people", "src": "Wikipedia: FOMA", "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FOMA", "checked": { "date": "2026-11-07", "status": 200 } }, { "id": "facebook", "date": "2004", "title": "Facebook launches", "text": "Facebook goes live and changes how people connect online.", "side": "people", "src": "Meta", "url": "https://about.fb.com/company-info/", "player": "Meta", "checked": { "date": "2026-11-07", "status": 200 } }, { "id": "youtube", "date": "2005-04-23", "title": "\"Me at the zoo\"", "text": "The first YouTube video goes up. It's 19 seconds at the zoo, in front of the elephants.", "side": "people", "src": "YouTube", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jNQXAC9IVRw", "checked": { "date": "2026-11-07", "status": 200 } }, { "id": "s3", "date": "2006-03-13", "title": "Amazon S3: \"storage for the Internet\"", "text": "Amazon announces S3, storage any program can rent. It goes live the next day, 14 March.", "side": "machines", "player": "AWS", "src": "AWS What's New", "url": "https://aws.amazon.com/about-aws/whats-new/2006/03/13/announcing-amazon-s3---simple-storage-service/", "story": "aws-story", "also": "https://www.allthingsdistributed.com/2016/03/10-lessons-from-10-years-of-aws.html", "checked": { "date": "2026-11-07", "status": 200 } }, { "id": "tweet", "date": "2006-03-21", "title": "\"just setting up my twttr\"", "text": "Jack Dorsey posts the first tweet.", "side": "people", "src": "X (Twitter)", "url": "https://twitter.com/jack/status/20", "checked": { "date": "2026-11-07", "status": 200 } }, { "id": "ec2", "date": "2006-08-24", "title": "Amazon EC2: rent a computer", "text": "AWS opens the EC2 beta. Software can now rent computers by the hour.", "side": "machines", "player": "AWS", "src": "AWS What's New", "url": "https://aws.amazon.com/about-aws/whats-new/2006/08/24/announcing-amazon-elastic-compute-cloud-amazon-ec2---beta/", "story": "aws-story", "checked": { "date": "2026-11-07", "status": 200 } }, { "id": "iphone", "date": "2007-01-09", "title": "The iPhone", "text": "Apple unveils the iPhone. It's a phone, an iPod and an internet device with a touch screen.", "side": "people", "src": "Apple Newsroom", "url": "https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2007/01/09Apple-Reinvents-the-Phone-with-iPhone/", "wow": true, "player": "Apple", "checked": { "date": "2026-11-07", "status": 200 } }, { "id": "recaptcha", "date": "2007-05-27", "title": "reCAPTCHA: prove you're human", "text": "Carnegie Mellon researchers launch reCAPTCHA. It tells people from bots and helps digitise old books.", "side": "both", "player": "Google", "src": "Wikipedia: reCAPTCHA", "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ReCAPTCHA", "checked": { "date": "2026-11-07", "status": 200 } }, { "id": "appengine", "date": "2008-04-07", "title": "Google's cloud opens", "text": "Google launches App Engine. That's the start of Google Cloud.", "side": "machines", "player": "Google", "src": "Wikipedia: Google Cloud Platform", "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Cloud_Platform", "checked": { "date": "2026-11-07", "status": 200 } }, { "id": "appstore", "date": "2008-07-10", "title": "The App Store opens", "text": "It opens with more than 500 apps. People download ten million in the first weekend.", "side": "people", "src": "Apple Newsroom", "url": "https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2008/07/10iPhone-3G-on-Sale-Tomorrow/", "also": "https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2008/07/14iPhone-App-Store-Downloads-Top-10-Million-in-First-Weekend/", "player": "Apple", "checked": { "date": "2026-11-07", "status": 200 } }, { "id": "bing", "date": "2009-06-03", "title": "Bing launches", "text": "Microsoft launches Bing, its new search engine.", "side": "machines", "player": "Microsoft", "src": "Microsoft Source", "url": "https://news.microsoft.com/2009/05/28/microsofts-new-search-at-bing-com-helps-people-make-better-decisions/", "also": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Bing", "checked": { "date": "2026-11-07", "status": 200 } }, { "id": "recaptchag", "date": "2009-09-16", "title": "Google buys reCAPTCHA", "text": "Google buys reCAPTCHA. Now one of the biggest bot operators runs the human test.", "side": "both", "player": "Google", "src": "Official Google Blog", "url": "https://googleblog.blogspot.com/2009/09/teaching-computers-to-read-google.html", "checked": { "date": "2026-11-07", "status": 200 } }, { "id": "lte", "date": "2009-12-14", "title": "First 4G network", "text": "TeliaSonera opens the first public 4G (LTE) service. It covers Stockholm and Oslo.", "side": "both", "src": "Wikipedia: LTE", "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LTE_(telecommunication)", "checked": { "date": "2026-11-07", "status": 200 } }, { "id": "azure", "date": "2010-02-01", "title": "Windows Azure goes live", "text": "Microsoft's cloud goes on sale. Today it's called Azure.", "side": "machines", "player": "Microsoft", "src": "Wikipedia: Microsoft Azure", "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Azure", "checked": { "date": "2026-11-07", "status": 200 } }, { "id": "cloudflare", "date": "2010-09-27", "title": "Cloudflare launches", "text": "Cloudflare opens to the public. Today it sits in front of a big slice of the web.", "side": "both", "player": "Cloudflare", "src": "Cloudflare blog", "url": "https://blog.cloudflare.com/happy-birthday-cloudflare/", "also": "https://techcrunch.com/2010/09/27/cloudflare-wants-to-be-a-cdn-for-the-masses-and-takes-five-minutes-to-set-up/", "checked": { "date": "2026-11-07", "status": 200 } }, { "id": "bingbot", "date": "2010-10", "title": "Bingbot", "text": "Microsoft sends out Bingbot to crawl the web for Bing.", "side": "machines", "player": "Microsoft", "src": "Wikipedia: Bingbot", "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bingbot", "checked": { "date": "2026-11-07", "status": 200 } }, { "id": "siri", "date": "2011-10-04", "title": "Siri", "text": "Apple puts Siri on the iPhone 4S. You talk, a machine answers.", "side": "machines", "src": "Apple Newsroom", "url": "https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2011/10/04Apple-Launches-iPhone-4S-iOS-5-iCloud/", "player": "Apple", "checked": { "date": "2026-11-07", "status": 200 } }, { "id": "ipv6", "date": "2012-06-06", "title": "World IPv6 Launch", "text": "Big networks switch on IPv6 for good. IPv6 traffic then grows more than 5,000%.", "side": "machines", "src": "World IPv6 Launch", "url": "https://www.worldipv6launch.org/", "checked": { "date": "2026-11-07", "status": 200 } }, { "id": "alphago", "date": "2016-03-15", "title": "AlphaGo beats Lee Sedol", "text": "DeepMind's AlphaGo wins its match against Lee Sedol, one of the world's best Go players.", "side": "machines", "src": "Google", "url": "https://blog.google/technology/ai/alphagos-ultimate-challenge/", "player": "Google", "checked": { "date": "2026-11-07", "status": 200 } }, { "id": "mirai", "date": "2016-09-20", "title": "Mirai: the cameras attack", "text": "Hacked cameras, routers and smart TVs team up as a botnet. They flood a security blog with traffic.", "side": "machines", "src": "CISA", "url": "https://www.cisa.gov/news-events/alerts/2016/10/14/heightened-ddos-threat-posed-mirai-and-other-botnets", "wow": true, "checked": { "date": "2026-11-07", "status": 200 } }, { "id": "transformer", "date": "2017-06-12", "title": "\"Attention Is All You Need\"", "text": "Google researchers publish the Transformer. It's a new design for neural networks, built on attention.", "side": "machines", "src": "arXiv", "url": "https://arxiv.org/abs/1706.03762", "player": "Google", "checked": { "date": "2026-11-07", "status": 200 } }, { "id": "fiveg", "date": "2019-04-03", "title": "First 5G network", "text": "South Korea switches on its national 5G network. It's the first full commercial launch.", "side": "both", "src": "Wikipedia: 5G", "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/5G", "checked": { "date": "2026-11-07", "status": 200 } }, { "id": "starlink", "date": "2019-05-23", "title": "60 Starlink satellites", "text": "SpaceX launches its first 60 Starlink satellites. The goal is internet from orbit.", "side": "both", "src": "SpaceX, archived", "url": "http://web.archive.org/web/2019/https://www.spacex.com/news/2019/05/24/starlink-mission", "checked": { "date": "2026-11-07", "status": 200 } }, { "id": "gpt3", "date": "2020-05-28", "title": "GPT-3", "text": "OpenAI shows a language model that writes, answers and translates from a few examples.", "side": "machines", "src": "arXiv", "url": "https://arxiv.org/abs/2005.14165", "player": "OpenAI", "checked": { "date": "2026-11-07", "status": 200 } }, { "id": "starlinkbeta", "date": "2020-07", "title": "Internet from space, for people", "text": "Starlink opens a small beta of its satellite internet to the public.", "side": "people", "src": "Wikipedia: Starlink", "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starlink", "checked": { "date": "2026-11-07", "status": 200 } }, { "id": "radar", "date": "2020-09-30", "title": "Cloudflare Radar opens", "text": "Cloudflare launches Radar, a free public window on internet traffic. Later it shows bots vs humans.", "side": "both", "src": "Cloudflare blog", "url": "https://blog.cloudflare.com/introducing-cloudflare-radar/", "player": "Cloudflare", "checked": { "date": "2026-11-07", "status": 200 } }, { "id": "pat", "date": "2022-06-09", "title": "Fewer CAPTCHAs on Apple devices", "text": "Apple announces Private Access Tokens. Your device proves it's legit, so you skip the CAPTCHA.", "side": "both", "player": "Apple", "src": "Apple Developer", "url": "https://developer.apple.com/news/?id=huqjyh7k", "checked": { "date": "2026-11-07", "status": 200 } }, { "id": "rfc9309", "date": "2022-09", "title": "robots.txt becomes official", "text": "28 years later, the rules for crawlers become an official standard, RFC 9309.", "side": "both", "src": "RFC 9309 (IETF)", "url": "https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc9309", "rules": true, "checked": { "date": "2026-11-07", "status": 200 } }, { "id": "chatgpt", "date": "2022-11-30", "title": "ChatGPT", "text": "OpenAI releases ChatGPT. You talk to it in plain language, and it talks back.", "side": "machines", "src": "OpenAI, archived", "url": "http://web.archive.org/web/20221130180912/https://openai.com/blog/chatgpt/", "wow": true, "player": "OpenAI", "checked": { "date": "2026-11-07", "status": 200 } }, { "id": "gpt4", "date": "2023-03-15", "title": "GPT-4", "text": "OpenAI publishes GPT-4. It can read images as well as text.", "side": "machines", "src": "arXiv", "url": "https://arxiv.org/abs/2303.08774", "player": "OpenAI", "checked": { "date": "2026-11-07", "status": 200 } }, { "id": "gptbot", "date": "2023-08-07", "title": "GPTBot, and how to block it", "text": "OpenAI documents its crawler, GPTBot. Site owners can block it in robots.txt.", "side": "machines", "player": "OpenAI", "src": "The Verge", "url": "https://www.theverge.com/2023/8/7/23823046/openai-data-scrape-block-ai", "checked": { "date": "2026-11-07", "status": 200 } }, { "id": "gemini", "date": "2023-12-06", "title": "Gemini", "text": "Google introduces Gemini. At the time, it's Google's largest and most capable AI model.", "side": "machines", "src": "Google", "url": "https://blog.google/technology/ai/google-gemini-ai/", "player": "Google", "checked": { "date": "2026-11-07", "status": 200 } }, { "id": "aindependence", "date": "2024-07-03", "title": "One click to block AI bots", "text": "Cloudflare adds an \"easy button\" that blocks all AI bots. It's free for every customer.", "side": "both", "player": "Cloudflare", "src": "Cloudflare blog", "url": "https://blog.cloudflare.com/declaring-your-aindependence-block-ai-bots-scrapers-and-crawlers-with-a-single-click/", "checked": { "date": "2026-11-07", "status": 200 } }, { "id": "computeruse", "date": "2024-10-22", "title": "AI uses a computer", "text": "Anthropic's Claude learns \"computer use\". It looks at a screen, moves the mouse and types.", "side": "machines", "src": "Anthropic", "url": "https://www.anthropic.com/news/3-5-models-and-computer-use", "player": "Anthropic", "checked": { "date": "2026-11-07", "status": 200 } }, { "id": "mcp", "date": "2024-11-25", "title": "Model Context Protocol", "text": "Anthropic open-sources MCP. It's a standard plug that connects AI agents to tools and data.", "side": "machines", "src": "Anthropic", "url": "https://www.anthropic.com/news/model-context-protocol", "player": "Anthropic", "checked": { "date": "2026-11-07", "status": 200 } }, { "id": "operator", "date": "2025-01-23", "title": "Agents browse the web", "text": "OpenAI previews Operator. It's an agent that uses a web browser to do jobs for you.", "side": "machines", "src": "OpenAI, archived", "url": "http://web.archive.org/web/20250124000000/https://openai.com/index/introducing-operator/", "player": "OpenAI", "checked": { "date": "2026-11-07", "status": 200 } }, { "id": "imperva51", "date": "2025-04-15", "title": "Bots pass humans", "text": "Imperva says bots made 51% of web traffic in 2024. First time in a decade they beat people.", "side": "machines", "src": "Thales (2025 Imperva Bad Bot Report)", "url": "https://cpl.thalesgroup.com/about-us/newsroom/2025-imperva-bad-bot-report-ai-internet-traffic", "wow": true, "checked": { "date": "2026-11-07", "status": 200 } }, { "id": "cfblock", "date": "2025-07-01", "title": "AI crawlers need permission", "text": "Cloudflare starts blocking AI crawlers by default. Site owners must let them in.", "side": "both", "src": "Cloudflare", "url": "https://www.cloudflare.com/press/press-releases/2025/cloudflare-just-changed-how-ai-crawlers-scrape-the-internet-at-large/", "player": "Cloudflare", "checked": { "date": "2026-11-07", "status": 200 } } ], "robot_rules": { "title": "The first rules for robots", "steps": [ { "id": "asimov", "date": "1942-03", "kind": "fiction", "heading": "Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics", "lead": "Isaac Asimov first lists all three laws in his story \"Runaround\" (Astounding Science Fiction, March 1942). Robots had rules in stories long before real bots existed.", "quote": [ "A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.", "A robot must obey the orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.", "A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law." ], "attribution": "Isaac Asimov, the Three Laws of Robotics, first listed together in \"Runaround\" (1942)", "sources": [ { "name": "Wikipedia: Three Laws of Robotics", "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Laws_of_Robotics" }, { "name": "Wikipedia: Runaround (story)", "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Runaround_(story)" } ], "checked": { "date": "2026-11-07", "status": 200 } }, { "id": "robots", "date": "1994-06-30", "kind": "rule", "heading": "robots.txt: the web's first rulebook for bots", "lead": "A plain text file at /robots.txt asks crawlers to stay out of some places. It's a polite request. Bots can ignore it.", "file": "# robots.txt for http://www.example.com/\n\nUser-agent: *\nDisallow: /cyberworld/map/ # This is an infinite virtual URL space\nDisallow: /tmp/ # these will soon disappear\nDisallow: /foo.html", "file_caption": "The first example file in the 1994 document (Martijn Koster, robots mailing list consensus of 30 June 1994)", "pull": "It is not enforced by anybody, and there no guarantee that all current and future robots will use it.", "pull_by": "A Standard for Robot Exclusion, 1994 (wording as published)", "sources": [ { "name": "robotstxt.org: A Standard for Robot Exclusion", "url": "https://www.robotstxt.org/orig.html" } ], "checked": { "date": "2026-11-07", "status": 200 } }, { "id": "rfc9309", "date": "2022-09", "kind": "rule", "heading": "RFC 9309: official, 28 years later", "lead": "The IETF makes the Robots Exclusion Protocol a real standard. It builds on \"the method originally defined by Martijn Koster in 1994\". It still asks. It doesn't lock.", "pull": "These rules are not a form of access authorization.", "pull_by": "RFC 9309, IETF, September 2022", "sources": [ { "name": "RFC 9309 (IETF)", "url": "https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc9309" } ], "checked": { "date": "2026-11-07", "status": 200 } }, { "id": "ours", "date": "today", "kind": "ours", "heading": "Ours today", "lead": "This site's own robots.txt. Every bot is welcome, except on the sign-up API.", "live_url": "/robots.txt", "sources": [ { "name": "humansvsmachines.app/robots.txt", "url": "https://humansvsmachines.app/robots.txt" } ], "checked": { "date": "2026-11-07", "status": 200 } } ] }, "players": { "title": "Who runs the machines", "disclaimer": "Not affiliated with or endorsed by any company named here.", "note": "Names are text only, no logos. \"Their own number\" means the company published it. If we couldn't verify one, the card says so. Cloudflare's measurements are labelled as Cloudflare's.", "players": [ { "id": "cloudflare", "name": "Cloudflare", "role": "Sits in front of millions of websites. It sees bots and people side by side.", "bots": [ "Cloudflare Browser Run (in Radar's verified-bots list)" ], "bots_src": { "name": "Cloudflare Radar verified bots", "url": "https://developers.cloudflare.com/api/resources/radar/subresources/verified_bots/" }, "defence": "Bot Management", "defence_src": { "name": "Cloudflare: Bot Management", "url": "https://www.cloudflare.com/application-services/products/bot-management/" }, "numbers": [ { "value": "4.2% vs 4.5%", "text": "\"While other AI bots accounted for 4.2% of HTML request traffic, Googlebot alone accounted for 4.5%\"", "date": "2025-12-15", "own": true, "src": { "name": "Cloudflare Radar 2025 Year in Review", "url": "https://blog.cloudflare.com/radar-2025-year-in-review/" } } ], "checked": { "date": "2026-11-07", "status": 200 } }, { "id": "aws", "name": "Amazon / AWS", "role": "Rents out the computers much of the machine side runs on. S3 and EC2 started it in 2006.", "bots": [ "Amazonbot", "Amzn-SearchBot", "Amzn-User" ], "bots_src": { "name": "Amazon: Amazonbot", "url": "https://developer.amazon.com/amazonbot" }, "defence": "AWS WAF Bot Control", "defence_src": { "name": "AWS WAF developer guide: Bot Control", "url": "https://docs.aws.amazon.com/waf/latest/developerguide/waf-bot-control.html" }, "numbers": [], "story": "aws-story", "checked": { "date": "2026-11-07", "status": 200 } }, { "id": "google", "name": "Google", "role": "Runs the web's biggest crawler. Also owns reCAPTCHA, the best-known human test.", "bots": [ "Googlebot (Smartphone, Desktop)", "Google-Extended (AI training opt-out token)" ], "bots_src": { "name": "Google Search Central: Google crawlers", "url": "https://developers.google.com/search/docs/crawling-indexing/overview-google-crawlers" }, "defence": "reCAPTCHA", "defence_src": { "name": "Google Cloud: reCAPTCHA", "url": "https://cloud.google.com/security/products/recaptcha" }, "numbers": [ { "value": "hundreds of billions", "text": "\"When you search, Google looks through hundreds of billions of webpages and other digital content\"", "date": "2026-11-06", "date_label": "page read 6 Nov 2026", "own": true, "src": { "name": "Google: How Search organizes information", "url": "https://www.google.com/search/howsearchworks/how-search-works/organizing-information/" } } ], "checked": { "date": "2026-11-07", "status": 200 } }, { "id": "microsoft", "name": "Microsoft", "role": "Runs Bing, its crawler Bingbot, and the Azure cloud.", "bots": [ "Bingbot" ], "bots_src": { "name": "Wikipedia: Bingbot", "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bingbot" }, "defence": "Azure Web Application Firewall, Bot Manager rule set", "defence_src": { "name": "Microsoft Learn: Azure WAF on Front Door", "url": "https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/web-application-firewall/afds/afds-overview" }, "numbers": [ { "value": "100 trillion+", "text": "\"Every day, Microsoft processes more than 100 trillion signals\" (security signals, Microsoft Digital Defense Report 2025)", "date": "2025-10-16", "own": true, "src": { "name": "Microsoft On the Issues", "url": "https://blogs.microsoft.com/on-the-issues/2025/10/16/mddr-2025/" } } ], "checked": { "date": "2026-11-07", "status": 200 } }, { "id": "akamai", "name": "Akamai", "role": "The first big content delivery network, from 1998. Now it sells bot defence too.", "bots": [], "bots_src": null, "defence": "Bot Manager", "defence_src": { "name": "Wikipedia: Akamai Technologies", "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akamai_Technologies" }, "numbers": [], "missing": "Akamai publishes bot numbers in its State of the Internet reports. Its site blocked our checks on 6 Nov 2026, so we show none.", "checked": { "date": "2026-11-07", "status": 200 } }, { "id": "apple", "name": "Apple", "role": "Makes the phone most people browse on. Also built a way to skip CAPTCHAs.", "bots": [ "Applebot", "Applebot-Extended (AI training opt-out)" ], "bots_src": { "name": "Apple Support: About Applebot", "url": "https://support.apple.com/en-us/119829" }, "defence": "Private Access Tokens (2022)", "defence_src": { "name": "Apple Developer: Private Access Tokens", "url": "https://developer.apple.com/news/?id=huqjyh7k" }, "numbers": [], "checked": { "date": "2026-11-07", "status": 200 } }, { "id": "meta", "name": "Meta", "role": "Its link-preview and AI crawlers are among the busiest named bots.", "bots": [ "Meta-ExternalAgent (AI)", "FacebookExternalHit (link previews)" ], "bots_src": { "name": "Meta for Developers: web crawlers", "url": "https://developers.facebook.com/docs/sharing/webmasters/web-crawlers/" }, "defence": null, "defence_src": null, "numbers": [], "checked": { "date": "2026-11-07", "status": 200 } }, { "id": "openai", "name": "OpenAI", "role": "ChatGPT's crawlers, plus the agent that browses for its users.", "bots": [ "GPTBot (training)", "OAI-SearchBot (search)", "ChatGPT-User (acts for a user)" ], "bots_src": { "name": "OpenAI: Overview of OpenAI crawlers", "url": "https://developers.openai.com/api/docs/bots" }, "defence": null, "defence_src": null, "numbers": [], "checked": { "date": "2026-11-07", "status": 200 } }, { "id": "anthropic", "name": "Anthropic", "role": "Claude's crawler, its search bot, and the agent that fetches pages for users.", "bots": [ "ClaudeBot (training)", "Claude-User (acts for a user)", "Claude-SearchBot (search)" ], "bots_src": { "name": "Anthropic: does Anthropic crawl the web?", "url": "https://support.claude.com/en/articles/8896518-does-anthropic-crawl-data-from-the-web-and-how-can-site-owners-block-the-crawler" }, "defence": null, "defence_src": null, "numbers": [ { "value": "38,000 : 1", "text": "\"Anthropic ... still leads with 38,000 crawls per visitor in July (down from 286,000:1 in January)\" (pages crawled per visitor sent back)", "date": "2025-08-29", "own": false, "src": { "name": "Cloudflare blog: the crawl-to-click gap", "url": "https://blog.cloudflare.com/crawlers-click-ai-bots-training/" } } ], "checked": { "date": "2026-11-07", "status": 200 } } ] }, "aws_story": { "id": "aws-story", "title": "AWS: built for Amazon's own machines first", "angle": "One of the internet's biggest platforms was built for machines to talk to machines. Customers came second.", "steps": [ { "when": "~2000", "head": "The same plumbing, built again and again", "text": "Amazon was an online shop that kept outgrowing itself. A three-month project spent three months just building its database, compute or storage. Every team built its own.", "quote": "Everyone was building their own resources for an individual project, with no thought to scale or reuse.", "src": { "name": "TechCrunch, \"How AWS came to be\" (Andy Jassy's account), 2 Jul 2016", "url": "https://techcrunch.com/2016/07/02/andy-jassys-brief-history-of-the-genesis-of-aws/" } }, { "when": "~2002 (as reported)", "head": "Machines must talk to machines through APIs", "text": "Jeff Bezos reportedly told every team to talk to each other only through APIs. Those APIs had to be ready for outside developers one day. The memo was never published. This is how ex-Amazon engineer Steve Yegge remembered it in 2011.", "quote": "All teams will henceforth expose their data and functionality through service interfaces.", "src": { "name": "Steve Yegge, \"Stevey's Google Platforms Rant\", 12 Oct 2011 (reported, not the memo)", "url": "https://gist.github.com/chitchcock/1281611" } }, { "when": "2003", "head": "A plan for standard, automated infrastructure", "text": "Benjamin Black and his boss Chris Pinkham wrote a short paper for Bezos. It pictured infrastructure built from web services. Near the end, it floated selling virtual servers.", "quote": "completely standardized, completely automated, and relied extensively on web services for things like storage", "src": { "name": "Benjamin Black, \"EC2 Origins\", 25 Jan 2009", "url": "https://blog.b3k.us/2009/01/25/ec2-origins.html" } }, { "when": "then", "head": "Other companies need this too", "text": "Amazon built shared services for its own teams. That's when it saw it might have something bigger.", "quote": "that’s when they began to realize they might have something bigger", "src": { "name": "TechCrunch, \"How AWS came to be\", 2 Jul 2016", "url": "https://techcrunch.com/2016/07/02/andy-jassys-brief-history-of-the-genesis-of-aws/" } }, { "when": "2006", "head": "S3 in March, EC2 in August", "text": "S3 went live on 14 March 2006. AWS's CTO calls it \"the epoch of AWS\". EC2 opened as a beta on 24 August 2006.", "quote": "The epoch of AWS is the launch of Amazon S3 on March 14, 2006", "src": { "name": "Werner Vogels, All Things Distributed, 11 Mar 2016", "url": "https://www.allthingsdistributed.com/2016/03/10-lessons-from-10-years-of-aws.html" }, "also": { "name": "AWS What's New: Amazon EC2 beta, 24 Aug 2006", "url": "https://aws.amazon.com/about-aws/whats-new/2006/08/24/announcing-amazon-elastic-compute-cloud-amazon-ec2---beta/" } } ], "myth": "You may have heard AWS began by renting out Amazon's spare Christmas servers. The people who built it tell a different story: shared services for Amazon's own software. We couldn't verify a direct denial from an AWS leader, so we don't quote one.", "checked": { "date": "2026-11-07", "status": 200 } }, "league": { "kind": "measured", "period": "2026-10-09 to 2026-11-06", "fetched": "2026-11-07", "ai_by_agent": { "label": "AI bots: share of AI bot requests, by crawler", "rows": [ [ "Googlebot", 23.7 ], [ "ClaudeBot", 12.9 ], [ "Meta-ExternalAgent", 8.6 ], [ "Applebot", 8.2 ], [ "Bingbot", 7.6 ], [ "GPTBot", 5.7 ], [ "ShapBot", 5.2 ], [ "Amazonbot", 4.6 ], [ "OAI-SearchBot", 4.6 ] ], "other": 18.9 }, "verified_by_operator": { "label": "Named (verified) bots: share of verified-bot requests, by operator", "rows": [ [ "Google", 23.5 ], [ "Meta", 14.6 ], [ "OpenAI", 12.2 ], [ "Anthropic", 6.4 ], [ "Microsoft", 4.5 ], [ "Baidu", 4.1 ], [ "Apple", 4.0 ], [ "Parallel", 3.0 ], [ "Cloudflare", 3.0 ], [ "Amazon", 2.5 ] ], "note": "Sum of each operator's bots in Radar's top 50 named bots, so each figure is a floor." }, "sources": [ { "name": "Cloudflare Radar AI bots API (CC BY-NC 4.0)", "url": "https://developers.cloudflare.com/api/resources/radar/subresources/ai/" }, { "name": "Cloudflare Radar verified bots API (CC BY-NC 4.0)", "url": "https://developers.cloudflare.com/api/resources/radar/subresources/verified_bots/" } ], "checked": { "date": "2026-11-07", "status": 200 } }, "series": { "hosts": { "label": "Computers (hosts) on the internet", "short": "hosts", "side": "machines", "unit": "count", "kind": "measured", "max_gap_months": 16, "break_before": [ "1993-01", "1998-01" ], "points": [ [ "1981-08", 213 ], [ "1982-05", 235 ], [ "1983-08", 562 ], [ "1984-10", 1024 ], [ "1985-10", 1961 ], [ "1986-02", 2308 ], [ "1986-11", 5089 ], [ "1987-12", 28174 ], [ "1988-07", 33000 ], [ "1988-10", 56000 ], [ "1989-01", 80000 ], [ "1989-07", 130000 ], [ "1989-10", 159000 ], [ "1990-10", 313000 ], [ "1991-01", 376000 ], [ "1991-07", 535000 ], [ "1991-10", 617000 ], [ "1992-01", 727000 ], [ "1993-01", 1313000 ], [ "1993-07", 1776000 ], [ "1994-01", 2217000 ], [ "1994-07", 3212000 ], [ "1995-01", 4852000 ], [ "1995-07", 6642000 ], [ "1996-01", 9472000 ], [ "1996-07", 12881000 ], [ "1997-01", 16146000 ], [ "1997-07", 19540000 ], [ "1998-01", 29670000 ], [ "1998-07", 36739000 ], [ "1999-01", 43230000 ], [ "1999-07", 56218000 ], [ "2000-01", 72398092 ], [ "2000-07", 93047785 ], [ "2001-01", 109574429 ], [ "2001-07", 125888197 ], [ "2002-01", 147344723 ], [ "2002-07", 162128493 ], [ "2003-01", 171638297 ], [ "2004-01", 233101481 ], [ "2004-07", 285139107 ], [ "2005-01", 317646084 ], [ "2005-07", 353284187 ], [ "2006-01", 394991609 ], [ "2006-07", 439286364 ], [ "2007-01", 433193199 ], [ "2007-07", 489774269 ], [ "2008-01", 541677360 ], [ "2008-07", 570937778 ], [ "2009-01", 625226456 ], [ "2009-07", 681064561 ], [ "2010-01", 732740444 ], [ "2010-07", 768913036 ], [ "2011-01", 818374269 ], [ "2011-07", 849869781 ], [ "2012-01", 888239420 ], [ "2012-07", 908585739 ], [ "2013-01", 963518598 ], [ "2013-07", 996230757 ], [ "2014-01", 1010251829 ], [ "2014-07", 1028544414 ], [ "2015-01", 1012706608 ], [ "2015-07", 1033836245 ], [ "2016-01", 1048766623 ], [ "2017-01", 1062660523 ], [ "2017-07", 1074971748 ], [ "2018-01", 1003604363 ], [ "2018-07", 1015787389 ], [ "2019-01", 1012695272 ] ], "sources": [ { "name": "RFC 1296, M. Lottor, SRI International (1981-1991)", "url": "https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc1296" }, { "name": "ISC Internet Domain Survey (1993-2019)", "url": "https://downloads.isc.org/www/survey/reports/current/" } ], "note": "Hosts listed in the DNS (and the SRI-NIC host table before it). The survey changed method in 1998 and ended in 2019. Counts are minimums: some domains refused to be counted." }, "web_sites": { "label": "Websites counted by the first crawler", "short": "websites", "side": "machines", "unit": "count", "kind": "measured", "max_gap_months": 7, "points": [ [ "1993-06", 130 ], [ "1993-12", 623 ], [ "1994-06", 2738 ], [ "1994-12", 10022 ], [ "1995-06", 23500 ], [ "1996-01", 100000 ] ], "sources": [ { "name": "Matthew Gray, MIT: World Wide Web Wanderer results", "url": "http://www.mit.edu/~mkgray/net/web-growth-summary.html" } ], "note": "Counted by the Wanderer crawler. Credit: Matthew Gray of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Rows Gray marked as not counted are left out." }, "mobile_subs": { "label": "Mobile phone subscriptions, world", "short": "mobile subscriptions", "side": "people", "unit": "count", "kind": "measured", "max_gap_months": 13, "points": [ [ "1980", 23482 ], [ "1981", 63585 ], [ "1982", 101509 ], [ "1983", 148855 ], [ "1984", 319252 ], [ "1985", 750629 ], [ "1986", 1450136 ], [ "1987", 2545270 ], [ "1988", 4327956 ], [ "1989", 7353071 ], [ "1990", 11210115 ], [ "1991", 16276503 ], [ "1992", 23245154 ], [ "1993", 34163482 ], [ "1994", 55511640 ], [ "1995", 90743607 ], [ "1996", 145042295 ], [ "1997", 214953349 ], [ "1998", 318097469 ], [ "1999", 490984248 ], [ "2005", 2205300000 ], [ "2006", 2744600000 ], [ "2007", 3367800000 ], [ "2008", 4029900000 ], [ "2009", 4639900000 ], [ "2010", 5290100000 ], [ "2011", 5889500000 ], [ "2012", 6260500000 ], [ "2013", 6661500000 ], [ "2014", 6995900000 ], [ "2015", 7131700000 ], [ "2016", 7452200000 ], [ "2017", 7696600000 ], [ "2018", 7915300000 ], [ "2019", 8214200000 ], [ "2020", 8260000000 ], [ "2021", 8476000000 ], [ "2022", 8654000000 ], [ "2023", 8877000000 ], [ "2024", 9005000000 ], [ "2025", 9171000000 ] ], "sources": [ { "name": "World Bank WDI IT.CEL.SETS (source: ITU), updated 2026-10-08", "url": "https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/IT.CEL.SETS" } ], "note": "Subscriptions, not people: one person can have several SIMs. Before 1980 the source has 5-yearly zeros only." }, "internet_users": { "label": "People using the internet, % of world population", "short": "of people online", "side": "people", "unit": "percent", "kind": "measured", "max_gap_months": 13, "points": [ [ "2005", 15.6 ], [ "2006", 17.2 ], [ "2007", 20.2 ], [ "2008", 22.8 ], [ "2009", 25.3 ], [ "2010", 28.4 ], [ "2011", 30.9 ], [ "2012", 33.3 ], [ "2013", 35.3 ], [ "2014", 37.4 ], [ "2015", 39.9 ], [ "2016", 43.6 ], [ "2017", 46.3 ], [ "2018", 49.4 ], [ "2019", 53.9 ], [ "2020", 60.1 ], [ "2021", 63.8 ], [ "2022", 67 ], [ "2023", 69.2 ], [ "2024", 71.2 ], [ "2025", 73.6 ] ], "sources": [ { "name": "World Bank WDI IT.NET.USER.ZS (source: ITU), updated 2026-10-08", "url": "https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/IT.NET.USER.ZS" } ], "note": "The world figure starts in 2005. Earlier years exist only country by country, so the world line starts there." }, "wiki_bot_edits": { "label": "Bot share of edits, all Wikimedia projects", "short": "of Wikimedia edits by bots", "side": "machines", "unit": "percent", "kind": "measured", "max_gap_months": 13, "points": [ [ "2001", 0.7 ], [ "2002", 4.0 ], [ "2003", 3.3 ], [ "2004", 5.7 ], [ "2005", 9.2 ], [ "2006", 13.6 ], [ "2007", 19.2 ], [ "2008", 23.3 ], [ "2009", 28.0 ], [ "2010", 30.3 ], [ "2011", 34.0 ], [ "2012", 37.8 ], [ "2013", 51.5 ], [ "2014", 45.0 ], [ "2015", 43.1 ], [ "2016", 36.7 ], [ "2017", 45.3 ], [ "2018", 46.4 ], [ "2019", 37.4 ], [ "2020", 47.3 ], [ "2021", 37.8 ], [ "2022", 41.0 ], [ "2023", 43.6 ], [ "2024", 48.5 ], [ "2025", 39.6 ] ], "sources": [ { "name": "Wikimedia Analytics edits API by editor type (CC0)", "url": "https://wikimedia.org/api/rest_v1/metrics/edits/aggregate/all-projects/group-bot/all-page-types/monthly/2001010100/2026110100" } ], "note": "Bots = accounts flagged as bots plus bot-like names, per full calendar year. Unflagged bots count as people, so this understates machines. Wikidata makes most bot edits." }, "radar_bot": { "label": "Machine share of web requests (Cloudflare Radar)", "short": "of web requests from machines", "side": "machines", "unit": "percent", "kind": "measured", "max_gap_months": 2, "points": [ [ "2022-11", 28.2 ], [ "2022-12", 27.8 ], [ "2023-01", 28.2 ], [ "2023-02", 28.8 ], [ "2023-03", 29.0 ], [ "2023-04", 29.1 ], [ "2023-05", 29.3 ], [ "2023-06", 29.5 ], [ "2023-07", 29.4 ], [ "2023-08", 28.7 ], [ "2023-09", 27.9 ], [ "2023-10", 27.7 ], [ "2023-11", 28.1 ], [ "2023-12", 30.8 ], [ "2024-01", 32.3 ], [ "2024-02", 29.8 ], [ "2024-03", 28.4 ], [ "2024-04", 28.6 ], [ "2024-05", 29.0 ], [ "2024-06", 29.3 ], [ "2024-07", 29.4 ], [ "2024-08", 29.2 ], [ "2024-09", 29.9 ], [ "2024-10", 30.0 ], [ "2024-11", 29.5 ], [ "2024-12", 30.1 ], [ "2025-01", 29.3 ], [ "2025-02", 29.0 ], [ "2025-03", 29.8 ], [ "2025-04", 30.7 ], [ "2025-05", 30.1 ], [ "2025-06", 30.4 ], [ "2025-07", 30.8 ], [ "2025-08", 30.2 ], [ "2025-09", 29.3 ], [ "2025-10", 28.1 ], [ "2025-11", 28.4 ], [ "2025-12", 30.1 ], [ "2026-01", 29.4 ], [ "2026-02", 31.6 ], [ "2026-03", 30.8 ], [ "2026-04", 32.1 ], [ "2026-05", 32.8 ], [ "2026-06", 34.7 ], [ "2026-07", 35.0 ], [ "2026-08", 35.1 ], [ "2026-09", 37.2 ], [ "2026-10", 39.2 ] ], "sources": [ { "name": "Cloudflare Radar bot_class, weekly (CC BY-NC 4.0)", "url": "https://radar.cloudflare.com/traffic" } ], "note": "Monthly average of the weekly measured shares used on the home page. Traffic to sites on Cloudflare only." } } }