Claz is built for people – someone selling a couch, looking for an apartment, replying to an ad nearby. Lately, a growing share of our traffic hasn’t been people at all. It’s been bots.
Why now
AI and large language models have made large-scale scraping cheap and easy. The result is more automated traffic, often not gentle. That worries us for three reasons:
– Abuse of real users’ data. Listings posted in good faith can be harvested in bulk and reused for scams – fake offers, phishing, impersonation.
– Reliability. A flood of automated requests can slow Claz down for the people actually here to buy and sell.
– Fairness. Scrapers take everything and give nothing back.
What we did
The hard part isn’t blocking traffic – it’s blocking the right traffic, without annoying real users. So, at a high level:
– Smarter traffic limits, so no single source can hammer the site or vacuum pages at machine speed.
– Abuse detection that separates automated harvesting from normal human use.
– Verification only when needed – a quick check shown when traffic looks suspicious, invisible in normal use.
What this means for users
Probably nothing. Browsing, searching, and posting should feel the same. On rare occasions a user might be asked to confirm they’re human – that’s just the system being careful, and it should pass quickly.
Tell us if we got it wrong
We’d rather hear that a measure is in your way than have you quietly leave. If anything slows you down or blocks something legitimate, please tell us – we’ll tune it. Getting this balance right is ongoing work, and your feedback is the best signal we have.
Claz Blog 