diff --git a/r2/example.ini b/r2/example.ini
index 6fc8fe740..c4e0ec2b5 100644
--- a/r2/example.ini
+++ b/r2/example.ini
@@ -296,9 +296,6 @@ RL_OAUTH_SITEWIDE_ENABLED = true
 RL_OAUTH_RESET_MINUTES = 10
 RL_OAUTH_AVG_REQ_PER_SEC = 0.5
 
-# should we get rid of the non-api / cdn exemptions for ratelimits?
-RL_STRICT_ENFORCEMENT = false
-
 # user agent substrings to hard-ratelimit to a number of requests per ten second period
 # example: agents = googlebot:10, appengine:2
 agents =
diff --git a/r2/r2/controllers/reddit_base.py b/r2/r2/controllers/reddit_base.py
index 654f7f2e5..711b4b54d 100644
--- a/r2/r2/controllers/reddit_base.py
+++ b/r2/r2/controllers/reddit_base.py
@@ -980,11 +980,6 @@ class MinimalController(BaseController):
             client_id = c.oauth2_access_token.client_id.encode("ascii")
             # OAuth2 ratelimits are per user-app combination
             key = 'siterl-oauth-' + c.user._id36 + ":" + client_id
-        elif g.RL_STRICT_ENFORCEMENT:
-            type_ = "strict"
-            max_reqs = g.RL_MAX_REQS
-            period = g.RL_RESET_SECONDS
-            key = "siterl-strict-" + request.ip
         elif c.cdn_cacheable:
             type_ = "cdn"
         elif not is_api():
diff --git a/r2/r2/lib/app_globals.py b/r2/r2/lib/app_globals.py
index f81a1792c..0fcb23f84 100644
--- a/r2/r2/lib/app_globals.py
+++ b/r2/r2/lib/app_globals.py
@@ -227,7 +227,6 @@ class Globals(object):
             'ENFORCE_RATELIMIT',
             'RL_SITEWIDE_ENABLED',
             'RL_OAUTH_SITEWIDE_ENABLED',
-            'RL_STRICT_ENFORCEMENT',
         ],
 
         ConfigValue.tuple: [