Online marketplace MFG.com, which claims to have 125,000 companies and 200,000 individual users accessing its portal for global manufacturing deals, started using the Pramana bot-blocking service in January.

"There are a lot of automated processes in bots trying to attack the Web site," says Mitch Free, CEO at Atlanta-based MFG.com. "Sometimes, they're just trying to steal content."

By using the Pramana service, MFG.com has been able to drop use of the CAPTCHA mechanism, which some bots were finding a way around anyway, Free says. There are some legitimate automated services used within MFG.com, and the Pramana service doesn't interfere with them, he says.

in Network World's Wide Area Network section.