Strava declares war on scrapers ahead of IPO
Strava is taking measures to protect its data from aggressive scraping by AI companies ahead of its IPO. The company is implementing stricter access controls and introducing a subscription fee for developers to access its API. Strava's CEO emphasized the need for data discipline to maintain the integrity of the public internet.
- ▪Strava is restricting access to its website and introducing fees for developer access to combat data scraping.
- ▪The company is increasing security measures and requiring authentication to view certain data.
- ▪Strava's developer community has grown significantly, and the company plans to support them while also tightening API rules.
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AI companies have grown into data-hungry entities as their models require ever-larger datasets to train on. To meet that need, many AI startups defy long-standing internet conventions — like respecting robots.txt files, which signal to automated crawlers which parts of a website are off-limits — and scrape data aggressively. This has forced websites to restrict access to their data and, in some cases, strike licensing deals with AI companies. Fitness and social running company Strava is making a move in this direction by restricting its website and introducing fees for developer access. To stop scraping, the company is increasing security around its website and will now only allow authenticated users to view certain data.
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