Internet Scraping and the Future of the Open Web in the Internet Age

March 26, 2026

Join Georgetown Law’s Institute for Technology Law & Policy on March 26, 2026 from 9:00 to 11:30 AM for a series of talks and panels, hosted by the Center for Democracy & Technology with support from the Wikimedia Foundation, on how to ensure a sustainable internet ecosystem in the face of new pressures caused by the rise of AI.

Confirmed speakers and event agenda can be found here. 

AI adoption is rapidly exploding. Equally explosive are the related challenges that web sites are facing. There’s been a sharp rise in automated traffic from bots seeking data to train AI models, to ground AI answers in up-to-date information from the web, or take automated action on behalf of AI users. At the same time, many sites are receiving much less traffic from humans as more people turn to AI for information, the same humans those sites may rely on for ad revenue, subscriptions or donations. In response, many sites are building legal and technical walls around content that used to be freely available, while sites that want to remain open are struggling to stay that way. How can society take advantage of the myriad benefits of AI while also continuing to sustain an open web full of high-quality information that is accessible to all?

This morning-long program, with lightning talks, fireside chats and an expert panel, will tackle these existential questions for the future of AI and the web with a broad multistakeholder lens.  Georgetown Law’s Institute for Technology Law & Policy and its Intellectual Property Information Policy Clinic, in collaboration with the Center from Democracy & Technology and with support from the Wikimedia Foundation, will bring together experts from all sides for in-depth dialogue: commercial and noncommercial web publishers like the New York Times and Wikimedia, commercial and noncommercial AI labs like Google and EleutherAI, commercial data collectors like Bright Data and noncommercial web archivists like the Internet Archive, nonprofit associations and industry coalitions like the Association for Responsible Data Collection and the SPARC research library association. 

Space is limited. Please RSVP here!

• Location: Georgetown Law Gewirz Student Center, 12th floor, 120 F St NW, Washington DC 20001
• Date: March 26, 2026
• Time: 9:00 – 11:30 AM (doors at 8:30)
• Format: IN-PERSON ONLY