AltText.ai Bot Policy

1. Bot Identification

Our bot includes clear identification in all requests via the following HTTP header:

This header allows website owners to easily identify our bot traffic and apply any custom handling rules as needed.

2. Allowed Behavior & Limitations

Scope of Requests

• Our system processes images in two ways:
  • Direct image URLs submitted by our users
  • Webpage URLs where we extract image elements for processing
• When scraping webpages, we only extract image elements and their attributes.
• We limit the number of images processed per page to prevent excessive load.
• We only process content that our customers have explicitly authorized us to access.

Request Handling

• We set reasonable timeouts (2-5 seconds) for all requests.
• We limit the maximum size of downloaded content.
• We cap the number of images processed from a single page.

Image Fetching

• When downloading images, we identify ourselves with the User-Agent: AltTextAI/1.0.1 header.
• We respect URL validation and only process properly formatted image URLs.
• We implement short-term caching to avoid redundant requests for the same image.
• We enforce size limits to prevent excessive bandwidth usage.

Access Limitations

• Our bot only accesses images that are explicitly provided by our users.
• We do not follow links or crawl sites beyond the specific URLs provided.
• We respect website terms of service and access policies.

3. Compliance & Security

Security Practices

• All requests use modern TLS encryption (TLS 1.2+).
• We authenticate our requests when required by customer integrations.
• We maintain consistent IP ranges for our production traffic.

IP Addresses

Our bot operates from Amazon CloudFront's IP ranges. These ranges are regularly updated by AWS.

For the most current list of CloudFront IP ranges, please refer to:

ip-ranges.amazonaws.com/ip-ranges.json

Look for entries with "service": "CLOUDFRONT" in the JSON file. AWS updates this file whenever their IP ranges change.

Error Handling

Our system implements basic error handling, including:

• Setting reasonable timeouts to avoid hanging connections.
• Graceful handling of connection failures.
• Appropriate error logging for troubleshooting.

4. Privacy & Data Handling

Data Storage & Retention

• We process images in memory and do not store the raw image data beyond processing.
• Generated alt text is stored in accordance with our Privacy Policy.

GDPR Compliance

Our bot and all data processing comply with GDPR requirements including:

• Processing only with proper legal basis (customer consent).
• Implementing data minimization principles.
• Providing mechanisms for data subject requests.

5. Responsible Usage

We are committed to responsible usage of external resources:

• We only access images and webpages specifically provided by our users.
• When scraping webpages, we limit extraction to image elements and respect size constraints.
• We implement reasonable timeouts and size limits for all requests.
• We maintain short caching periods to reduce redundant requests.

6. Contact & Support

If you have questions, concerns, or believe our bot is not behaving in accordance with this policy, please contact us:

• Email: support@alttext.ai
• Response time: We aim to respond to all inquiries within 1 business day.
• Emergency: For urgent issues, please include "BOT EMERGENCY" in your subject line.

To help us investigate your concern, please include:

• Your domain name
• Approximate time of the issue
• Sample requests/URLs if available
• Any error messages received