Shopify Quietly Deploys Cryptographic Bot Identity Standard in Production

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A developer testing an unrelated feature discovered that Shopify has deployed Web Bot Auth, a draft IETF standard, in live production on its storefronts. The implementation issues cryptographically signed credentials that allow merchants to verify the identity of automated agents, such as AI shopping bots, knocking at their door. The signature covers the request authority and agent identifier, meaning Shopify vouches for the agent rather than the agent self-certifying on every request. A scan of 22 e-commerce sites found that none currently differentiate between verified and unverified automated visitors, despite the technical infrastructure now existing to do so. The findings highlight that while cryptographic bot identity is now a solved problem in principle, decisions about what access rights a verified agent should receive remain entirely unaddressed by merchants.

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