



Network Working Group                                       JDAJ. Jewell
Internet-Draft                             National Union of Journalists
Intended status: Informational                            15 August 2025
Expires: 16 February 2026


                AI Boundary Declaration Protocol (AIBDP)
                         draft-jewell-aibdp-00

Abstract

   This document defines the AI Boundary Declaration Protocol (AIBDP), a
   declarative framework for expressing usage boundaries around web-
   hosted content in relation to AI systems.  It builds on the
   mechanisms of RFC 2196 and RFC 9116, as well as on the HTTP semantics
   of RFC 9110 and the robots-style inclusion rules of RFC 7725, to
   provide machine-readable permissions and denials for indexing,
   training, mimicry, representation, derivative construction,
   analytical exploitation, and agentic access.  AIBDP supports ethical
   infrastructure, agentic AI governance, and procedural clarity across
   the Internet.

Status of This Memo

   This Internet-Draft is submitted in full conformance with the
   provisions of BCP 78 and BCP 79.

   Internet-Drafts are working documents of the Internet Engineering
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   This Internet-Draft will expire on 16 February 2026.

Copyright Notice

   Copyright (c) 2025 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the
   document authors.  All rights reserved.








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   This document is subject to BCP 78 and the IETF Trust's Legal
   Provisions Relating to IETF Documents (https://trustee.ietf.org/
   license-info) in effect on the date of publication of this document.
   Please review these documents carefully, as they describe your rights
   and restrictions with respect to this document.

Table of Contents

   1.  Introduction  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   2
   2.  Definitions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   2
   3.  Manifest Format . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   3
   4.  Consent States  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   4
   5.  Use Case Scenarios  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   4
   6.  Interoperability with HTTP 430  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   4
   7.  Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   5
   8.  IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   5
   9.  Normative References  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   5
   Appendix A.  Appendix A.  Implementation Examples . . . . . . . .   5
   Appendix B.  Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   6
   Author's Address  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   6

1.  Introduction

   As AI systems become increasingly capable of autonomous interaction,
   generation, and ingestion of online content, current technical
   governance mechanisms such as robots.txt [RFC9309], security.txt
   [RFC9116], HTTP semantics per RFC 9110, and licensing-metadata fail
   to communicate granular boundaries for ethical AI use.  AIBDP
   introduces a declarative perimeter protocol designed to enable web
   publishers and institutions to express machine-readable consent
   declarations for specific categories of AI use, including indexing,
   training, agentic access, stylistic imitation, derivative prompting,
   analytic harvesting, and infrastructural activation.

   The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT",
   "SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "NOT RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and
   "OPTIONAL" in this document are to be interpreted as described in RFC
   2119.

2.  Definitions

   AIBDP declarations may be conveyed through:

   *  .well-known/aibdp.json manifest

   *  HTTP response headers (e.g., GenAI-Consent)

   *  DNS TXT records



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   *  HTML meta tags

   Declaration keys are grouped by category:

   *  consent: indexing, training, generation

   *  agentic: access, fallback

   *  representation: embedding, summarization, metadataHarvesting,
      multiHopRetrieval

   *  influence: stylisticImitation, thematicRegeneration,
      partialSampling

   *  derivation: promptDerivation, fineTuningBootstrap, templateReuse

   *  analytics: sentimentClassification, entityResolution,
      patternMining

   *  infrastructure: autonomousTaskTriggering, crossDomainAggregation,
      consentCircumvention

3.  Manifest Format

   AIBDP declarations are published as a JSON file:

   Location: /.well-known/aibdp.json

   Media Type: application/aibdp+json

   Example manifest:

   { "consent": { "indexing": "allow", "training": "deny", "generation":
   "deny" }, "agentic": { "access": "deny", "fallback": "deny" },
   "representation": { "embedding": "deny", "summarization": "deny",
   "metadataHarvesting": "deny", "multiHopRetrieval": "deny" },
   "influence": { "stylisticImitation": "deny", "thematicRegeneration":
   "deny", "partialSampling": "deny" }, "derivation": {
   "promptDerivation": "deny", "fineTuningBootstrap": "deny",
   "templateReuse": "deny" }, "analytics": { "sentimentClassification":
   "deny", "entityResolution": "deny", "patternMining": "deny" },
   "infrastructure": { "autonomousTaskTriggering": "deny",
   "crossDomainAggregation": "deny", "consentCircumvention": "deny" },
   "notice": "This content is protected under AIBDP.  Unauthorized
   ingestion or derivative use constitutes breach." }






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4.  Consent States

   AIBDP supports the following values:

   *  allow

   *  deny

   *  limited

   *  sandbox

   *  deferred

   *  reviewed

   *  license

   *  disclosed

   *  aggregatedOnly

   *  anonymisedOnly

   Absence of a key implies undefined, not implicitly permitted.

5.  Use Case Scenarios

   *  Public blogs requiring attribution for stylistic reuse.

   *  Journalistic archives denying training and derivative use.

   *  Academic repositories permitting vector embedding only for
      licensed research.

   *  Creative portfolios blocking agentic model invocation.

6.  Interoperability with HTTP 430

   Per draft-jewell-http-430-consent-required [_30], if a client fails
   to comply with AIBDP boundaries, the server MAY respond:

   HTTP/1.1 430 Consent Required

   Content-Type: application/json

   /well-known/aibdp.json; rel="blocked-by"




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   Retry-After: 86400

   { "error": "Consent declaration missing or invalid.", "reference":
   "https://example.org/.well-known/aibdp.json" }

   This enables ethical denial logic across protocol layers.

7.  Security Considerations

   AIBDP declarations are advisory and public.  Enforcement requires
   additional legal or infrastructure mechanisms.  Headers and manifests
   must not leak identifying information beyond declarative scope.

8.  IANA Considerations

   This document requests:

   *  Registration of /.well-known/aibdp.json

   *  Registration of media type application/aibdp+json

   *  Registration of HTTP header GenAI-Consent

   *  Recognition of 430 Consent Required (see draft-jewell-http-430-
      consent-required)

9.  Normative References

   [RFC9116]  IETF, "A File Format to Aid in Security Vulnerability
              Disclosure", RFC 9116, April 2022,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc9116>.

   [RFC9309]  IETF, "Robots Exclusion Protocol", RFC 9309, September
              2022, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc9309>.

   [_30]      Jewell, J. D., "HTTP Status Code 430: Consent Required",
              Work in Progress, Internet-Draft, draft-jewell-http-430-
              consent-required-00, 2025,
              <https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-jewell-http-430-
              consent-required/>.

Appendix A.  Appendix A.  Implementation Examples

   A.1 HTTP Headers

   GenAI-Consent: indexing=allow; training=deny; generation=deny GenAI-
   Agentic: access=deny; fallback=deny




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   A.2 DNS TXT Record

   aibdp="training=deny; generation=deny; agentic.access=deny"

   A.3 HTML Meta Tags

   <meta name="aibdp-training" content="deny"> <meta name="aibdp-
   agentic-access" content="deny">

Appendix B.  Acknowledgements

   This proposal builds on ethical governance efforts in journalism,
   computing, and infrastructure architecture.  Thanks to contributors
   from the NUJ, the IETF HTTPAPI and ART areas, and transparency
   coalitions engaging in boundary-aware standards formation.

Author's Address

   Jonathan D.A. Jewell
   National Union of Journalists
   Email: jonathan@metadatastician.art






























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