About
We build WARD.
A small team testing an open protocol for AI access decisions at the web origin. Based in Leipzig.
What WARD is
A small, testable gateway
WARD (Web Access Rights Declaration) is an open-source alpha protocol that turns a machine-readable policy into an origin decision: allow, observe, or redact.
The code is MIT-licensed. The reference site exposes a reproducible redaction demo and an evidence receipt model. WARD is not yet an adopted formal standard.
Manifesto
What we believe
The open web is worth defending.
Standards are the only way to defend it at scale.
Claims and proof are different things.
Crawler identity, gateway decisions, and downstream use must remain separate in the evidence model.
The protocol layer should stay open.
Independent implementations and public conformance tests matter more than a proprietary dashboard.
Enforcement beats etiquette.
robots.txt expresses crawler preferences. WARD tests a complementary origin-enforcement layer.
Transparency beats spin.
Roadmap, funding, and decisions stay public.
Why this exists
Rights signals still need an origin action.
EU copyright rules and the AI Act increase the importance of machine-readable rights reservations. Existing work addresses expression and discovery, while enforcement and evidence remain separate implementation concerns.
WARD explores that narrow technical role: map a signal to an origin decision, preserve the requester's confidence level, and make the result reproducible. It is one candidate approach, not the official answer.
Team
Who's building WARD
A small core team in Leipzig — standard design, business development, product, operations, and community.
Slava Spitsyn
Founder — Standard & Partnerships
Designs the standard and takes it to the world. 20 years in sales before law and AI.
Oksana Spitsyna
Business Development & Compliance
Drives adoption and pilots, and keeps B2B digital compliance on solid ground.
Kristina Ivanova
Operations & Executive Assistant
Runs the day-to-day — clients, scheduling, paperwork — so the rest of the team can build.
Artur Martens
Product & Analytics
Turns bot signals into product decisions. 8+ years in product management and analytics.
Oleksii Iagich
Head of Social Media & Community
Runs WARD's voice on social media and grows the community around the standard.
Talk to us directly
Have a question, an idea, or want to collaborate? Write to us directly — no PR agency, no middlemen.
hi@slavaspitsyn.comGitHub: slavaspitsyn (brand) · vaclavnew (projects).