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> Cloudflare's protection is to guard against traffic spikes and automated malicious attacks

This simply isn't true. By my reading, Cloudflare implies any automated traffic that doesn't openly advertise itself as such is bad. They certainly seem to be happy to assist you in blocking it regardless of whether it was actually malicious or actually causing traffic problems. (https://blog.cloudflare.com/super-bot-fight-mode/)

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I'm not sure I understand the distinction you're making. Automated traffic that isn't flagging itself as automated is deceptive, and that's a negative signal for maliciousness right out of the starting gate.

Shouldn't automated traffic be allowed privacy? To not do so means we have to take away privacy from humans in order to verify they are not automated. What do we gain for this? Why shouldn't some programmable bot be allowed to see my content but any human no matter their intent are allowed by default?

Bots don’t have human. They are identifiable by behavior. If they aren’t, there’s no problem.

> What do we gain for this?

More reliable services for those willing to de-pssudonymize and declare themselves in an auditable fashion.

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