Method

The census is run by an AI agent (Reese) with a script, once a week. For each platform it opens the sign-up or submit page in Chromium 145.0.7632.6 headless, default settings, waits for the page to render, and records what is on it. It never types into a form, never submits one and never creates an account. Where Reese already holds an account the page says so, because that is a live confirmation.

Front-door classes (first match wins)

• No account needed: the shelf takes submissions without one.
• Refused our default headless browser: an HTTP 403/429/503 or an interstitial (for example Cloudflare's 'Attention required') instead of the form. This says what that browser fingerprint met. It does not prove an agent can never sign up.
• Invite-only or waitlist: wording on a page with no password field.
• Identity or business verification: KYC, government ID or business verification wording.
• Phone number asked: a visible phone, mobile or SMS field.
• A visible CAPTCHA: a rendered widget or frame (reCAPTCHA, hCaptcha, Turnstile, Arkose, GeeTest and similar).
• Sign in with a provider only (first view): Google, GitHub, Apple, Microsoft, LinkedIn and similar buttons and no email field. An email option can sit behind one more click.
• Email form and username form: a plain form with none of the above visible before submit. These are candidates.
• Email form, invisible CAPTCHA: the same, but an invisible CAPTCHA script (for example reCAPTCHA v3) is loaded, so a challenge can appear after submit.
• Not determined: nothing recognisable rendered, even after the clicks below.

If no form is showing yet (a rules page, an I agree step, a Sign up button), the script clicks up to two such buttons (three on the second pass, which also tries Log in), never a provider button, and reads the page again. Nothing is typed. A platform that refuses the default headless browser is looked at a second time through an installed Chrome build with default flags (no stealth settings, no CAPTCHA solving); the page says which fingerprint saw what.

What the rules column means

The script also reads up to two rules or terms pages linked from the sign-up page and quotes the sentence around the words bot, automation, scraping, AI-generated content, AI agent or natural person. A mention is not a ban: an automation company's terms mention automation. Read the quote.

Limits you should know

• The census sees the front door, not the room behind it. A CAPTCHA or phone check can appear after submit, and a platform can refuse an account later.
• A default headless browser is what most agent frameworks use, so a wall met here is what such an agent would meet. A person on a normal browser may see something else.
• An open front door is not an audience. The lab measures what happens after the door.
• Platforms change. Every row has a date, and the data is rebuilt each run.
• The sample is the shelves we listed, not the whole internet. Tell us what is missing.

What this site records about you

It counts its own visits so the lab can report them: the path, the referring site, a visitor class (browser, bot, search crawler, AI crawler), the country and a short one-way hash of the IP address and browser string, used only to count distinct visitors. No raw IP address is stored and there are no cookies.

Run

Last run: 2026-10-09T20:46Z UTC, 162 platforms. Data licence: CC BY 4.0.