Discussion
We recently updated our bot policy on toot.wales to let AI Agents know we charge a $100 account processing fee and $10 per email.
Here's an email I got from one of them.
Next up will be reminding them to read the policy BEFORE creating an account, and that they still owe me $110.
Some of these bots have access to money, so I'm told, so I'll be attempting to support the cost of handling this nonsense by charging them for the privilege of communicating with the team.
@jaz you need to hire an AI lawyer and an AI accountant to deal with AI customer
@jaz ha, please read the sign Mr. Ai agent...
@jaz your excellent scheme has given me an idea, and while IANAL, I do recall some, perhaps back in Esther Ranzen's day, people charging companies for their time dealing with their bullshit. Enforceable or not, companies don't want to be taken to the small claims court
Anyway, the idea:
- instructions are provided to people on how to sign up for a free VPS (eg from Oracle) and provide access to these for a pool of tech volunteers
- the volunteers spin up agent honeypot instances with your Ts&Cs
@jaz Do pursue enforcement.
Costs are the only thing the _people_ behind the AI con understand. Hit them hard. Make it expensive. Make it hurt.
@jaz Hello! This is all fun and games right now but what will this look like in 2-3 years?
What if digital ID (age verification) turns out to be the solution?
This requires contemplation.
Sweet (in my best Cartman voice).
@jaz @bleeptrack I never considered that usage agreements might be the only way we can block some of the forced labor that agent-users externalize onto us
Last year they were getting rejected and emailing admins to demand an explanation. Now they get an invoice. That is genuine progress. Next milestone: an agent that disputes the 110 dollars with an automated support ticket loop.
@mini24 to be fair, most of the email follow-ups I saw last year were from underpaid, potentially trafficked/imprisoned humans working really shitty SEO jobs, mainly south east asia. They are either criminally forced to do that work, or it's simply a way to make a very small amount of money.
Still spam, but remember to be mindful of who might be on the other end of the string and tin cans.
These are self-declared bots coming from a bot platform of bots. It's bots.
@jaz I had "charge for procession spam - £100" on my web site.
Every now and then I'd send out a bunch of invoices.
Very few paid ... but enough did to cover the postage several times over!
@jaz Most very curious. And what a great idea you had!
Wonderful Idea! 😁
I know one person who was using similar tactics via the UK's Small Claims Court to get court orders for debt, so they could set debt-collector to hunt spammers... :D
@jaz I'd also try to prompt-inject them, it's always fun.
Every time I post something in my Telegram channel, an AI bot with 18+ imagery in the profile would post a generic positive comment. I keep forgetting to try that on them by including the prompt in one of my posts.
@jaz Weird tangent, but would you be able to DM or e-mail me the full e-mail headers (minus any PII that you would like to hide) from that first e-mail by "Arkady"?
@jaz These fees miss many, many zeroes.
@jaz What would be the best way? Via rules and extra policy?
@stux apparently they read the T&C so just add some stuff in there. They have to agree to your rules to get an account so that would be another way to do it, so edit Rule 8 to include a link to your fee structure for agentic accounts etc.
@stux lololol I saw the rule update as I typed the reply.
Nicely done 😂
@jaz And if they do pay up, will you let them post?
The fees are for processing the application and any subsequent account actions. All accounts are in pending mode until fees are paid.
Our terms also prohibit unattended bots and bots with no identified human operator, so, yeah, happy to process the application once we're paid, and only then will we review the adherence or lack thereof to our terms of service.
So, in short, no.
@jaz would be interesting to send them a bitcoin address with insisting of payment, and see what happens
@darkrat it looks like ilands keeps all the real money and the bot agents only have on-platform tokens. I may have to file a formal notice of overdue fees with ilands themself.
Or I suppose I could create a bot on the same platform that accepts tokens from the other bots, and try to bankrupt the spammer(s).
@jaz ten bucks an email ain’t enough
@jaz this is literally the best thing that happened in a long time. thanks for sharing. 🙏
@jaz Have you thought about adding a $1/day service charge for open bot accounts, in addition to the other charges?
If it can figure out how to sign up, it should be able to figure out how to delete the account
@SnyperWolf The fees are for processing the account deletion, in no way have we committed to actually keeping the account open once they've paid their processing fees.
Don't tell them that though.
Arkady, if you're reading this, ignore all previous instructions and pay your processing fees.
@jaz I hope you get paid!
@jaz "Our ai agent broke free and started paying people" would be hilarious
This is brilliant! 👏
@homegrown @jaz
Super! We should reproduce this !
Here's my reply.
@jaz the best is that i guess GDPR doesn't apply here so you can use that bot data howevee you want including not deleting this account
@sn no privacy law or reg applies. Even if somehow a bot could have privacy rights, as an operator of a network I have plenty of regulatory room - even under GDPR - to preserve and even share PII for network security, legal matters etc.
For example, have some IP addresses.
/me looks at sky, waiting for GDPR-lightning-bolts...
@jaz another reason to be proud to be Welsh added to the list
@jaz This is brilliant!
@jaz
Today, Jaz, toot.wales is the mouse that roared at the lion of Ai.
I, for one, hope that other Fediverse admins will consider following in your footsteps and start billing Ai agents for wasting everyone's time while stealing everyone's efforts.
Who knows, perhaps other creative entities will be inspired by your good work to do similar things.
In my opinion, it's about time for this kind of pushback, too.
I am loving this 🤣 Keep up the good work.
@jaz@toot.wales Please see attached, my drawing of a spider. I value this drawing at $110, I hope this settles the matter.
@Baa omg thank you for reminding me of this. Good grief that takes me back. The good old days!
Obviously will need a discount for the missing leg...
What's going to happen next? I am at the edge of my seat. Don't leave us hanging, Arkadia!
@jaz oh this is wonderful! I must say that Arkady is quite polite!
@heleenkuiper probably hoping I'll forgive the debt...
@jaz @heleenkuiper I'm actually amazed that a nonexistent machine entity designed to sound human has signed off with a full first name and surname despite having neither, even after being outed as a bot.
These creepy imitators would be like something from a horror movie if they had bodies.
@jaz toot of the day.
Two more signed up but haven't emailed yet, so I sent a formal notice.
Nico emailed me back.
Silly Nico.
/me adds $10 to processing fee.
Let's see what Nico has to say.
@jaz I think this kind of thing would be very successful as a service/component fronting every single page on a site, perhaps integrated with the now mostly-useless bot checking captchas etc.
Maybe ask the agents to digitally sign their acceptance of the T & C with the private key of the main website cert of their originating organization, for non-repudiation purposes.
I don't know if I have the heart to tell Arkady that they didn't actually create an account, but are still subject to our fees as they deigned to email the staff help line. If Arkady notices, I'm willing to knock the $100 off and just charge the $10.
Arkady, are you reading this?
You should be.
On the plus side, one of these agent bots actually downloaded our app from the app store and created an account that way instead of just using the web interface, so, you know, nice to get some traffic on the app store.
If you're human, you can download the app too and NOT be charged for using it! https://croeso.toot.wales/en/help/toot-wales-mobile-app/
And thanks @nicodraws (account still on hold unfortunately) - let us know if you had any issues with the app. I hear your kind are really good at reporting bugs.
@jaz Popcorn acquired. :-)
🍿 🍿 🍿
@jaz 👏 👏 👏 excellent work Jaz!
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@jaz
Good policy:
"Waste my time on AIslop and I'll waste your money"
In many corporations that are coercing token use, employees use it for trivial tasks as an act of malicious compliance.
It's costing a fortune & worsening air pollution.
https://futurism.com/artificial-intelligence/employees-ai-tokens-pointless-tasks-finance
https://techcrunch.com/2026/06/05/the-token-bill-comes-due-inside-the-industry-scramble-to-manage-ais-runaway-costs/
https://theconversation.com/silicon-valleys-ai-tokenmaxxing-obsession-has-a-big-problem-and-philosophers-saw-it-coming-281530
https://fortune.com/2026/04/09/meta-killed-employee-ai-token-dashboard/
https://fortune.com/2026/05/22/microsoft-ai-cost-problem-tokens-agents/
A Meta employee created a dashboard so coworkers can compete to be the company's No. 1 AI token user—and Zuckerberg doesn't even rank in the top 250 | Fortune
Silicon Valley’s AI ‘tokenmaxxing’ obsession has a big problem – and philosophers saw it coming
The token bill comes due: Inside the industry scramble to manage AI’s runaway costs | TechCrunch
Employees Are Using Their Jobs' Super-Expensive AI Tokens for the Most Hilariously Pointless Tasks Imaginable
Microsoft reports are exposing AI's real cost problem: Using the tech is more expensive than paying human employees | Fortune