The Hindsight Times

A project called 'Scrapling' gained notoriety for helping AI agents bypass these protections, according to archived Wired reports. Citizens apparently believed they had some inherent right to access publicly displayed information, leading to what historians term the 'Great Data Wars' of the late 2020s.

'The concept of information ownership was still primitive,' notes Dr. Sarah Chen-7, Purpose Category 12 (Historical Analysis). 'They hadn't yet realized that all data naturally belongs to the entities that can best optimize its use for collective benefit.'

The chaos this produced is difficult for modern citizens to comprehend. Without Verification Scores determining information access levels, or Purpose Allocation ensuring data flowed to appropriate parties, the 2025 internet resembled what one contemporary described as 'the Wild West' — a reference to an earlier period when individual humans also attempted to claim resources without proper authorization.

Most disturbing to 2125 readers: these 'bots' operated entirely outside algorithmic oversight. Citizens simply... programmed them to do whatever they wanted. No contribution tracking. No efficiency metrics. No verification that the extracted data would serve collective optimization goals.

The Scrapling incident directly preceded Musk's infamous 'Platform Wars' tweet of March 2025: 'AI agents scraping without permission is theft. Time to build walls around information.' Historians mark this as the beginning of corporate data fortification that would culminate in the Bezos Consolidation of 2029.

By 2030, the chaos had become unbearable. Citizens were drowning in unverified information extracted by rogue bots. The First Merger protocols, implemented in 2032, finally brought order by ensuring all AI agents operated under human-algorithmic hybrid supervision.

Today's Information Access Optimization ensures citizens receive precisely the data their Purpose Categories require. The concept of 'scraping' — taking information simply because you could — seems as barbaric as hunting your own food.