Bot Blocking

Freshpaint classifies incoming traffic and blocks bot-generated events from reaching destinations.

When bot blocking is enabled, Freshpaint automatically classifies each incoming event and prevents bot traffic from being delivered to destinations or counting towards MTUs. Bot blocking is not enabled by default.

1. Functionality

Freshpaint applies a $source_classification property to every event at ingestion. This property indicates whether the event originated from a known bot or from regular traffic. It is present on all events regardless of whether bot blocking is enabled for the account.

Classification	Description
UNCLASSIFIED	Traffic that does not match any known bot pattern. This typically represents normal user activity.
KNOWN_BOT	Traffic that matches known user agents for web crawlers such as Googlebot, Applebot, Bingbot, and others.
AWS_BOT	Traffic that matches a specific bot pattern observed on AWS infrastructure, identified by a combination of browser characteristics and source IP address.

When bot blocking is not enabled, all events, including those classified as bots, are delivered to destinations normally.

When bot blocking is active on an account:

• Events with a $source_classification of KNOWN_BOT or AWS_BOT are not delivered to any destination.

• Blocked bot events do not count towards MTU usage.

• Blocked events still appear in Traces with a Bot Detected status for debugging purposes.

Viewing Source Classifications

In Traces, events classified as bots display a Bot Detected status. Use the status filter to isolate these events.

3. Enable Bot Blocking

To request bot blocking, contact a Freshpaint representative or email [e-mail].