51Degrees launched Human Confidence on October 21, a data product that rates each web session as high, medium or low confidence of human origin.
What happened
The company says Human Confidence uses a portfolio of device and IP data to judge whether a session was likely started by a person. It is sold as part of the 51Degrees subscription suite, either as a cloud service or as an on-premise data package that supports real-time response. The release describes uses on two sides. Publishers and CDN providers could use it to manage bot access to their sites, cutting traffic costs and protecting their content. Adtech companies and publishers could use it to filter non-human traffic out of the advertising bidstream.
Why it matters
The release cites Fastly’s estimate that bots make up 49% of all web traffic by volume, and says 13% of web visits come from AI bots according to 51Degrees’ own data. CEO James Rosewell said, “Human Confidence is an essential new raw ingredient in the growing fight against non-human traffic.” The release also says advertisers are paying to promote their wares to robots, which is the cost its bidstream filtering use is aimed at.
One detail worth reading closely
Human Confidence is a data feed, and the release says it lets players across the web ecosystem “build tools to combat this issue in their own ways.” The threshold decision therefore sits with the customer, in our reading, since a team has to choose what to do with medium-confidence sessions: block them, bid lower or only report them. The release gives no accuracy figures or pricing. Earlier coverage of the bidstream side is in IAB Tech Lab Guidance Asks Teams to Audit Universal Ad ID Handling, and Measurement Disputes Are Moving From the Number to the Definition explains why the definition of a valid visit now decides the number.
Source: 51Degrees
