A bipartisan bill sponsored on July 23 by U.S. Rep. Laurel Lee (R-FL) would prohibit stealth bots, which are automated web crawlers or artificial intelligence (AI) scrapers that intentionally hide their true identity or impersonate human users to harvest data from websites without permission.
“As artificial intelligence becomes more sophisticated, we must ensure innovation is accompanied by transparency and accountability,” Rep. Lee said. “Today, website operators are too often left in the dark about who is accessing their systems and whether automated tools are collecting their content under false pretenses.”
The congresswoman introduced the Stealth Bot Prohibition Act, H.R. 9915, with two original cosponsors, including lead U.S. Rep. Valerie Foushee (D-NC), to require automated web crawlers to accurately identify themselves and disclose their purpose when accessing websites.
The bill also would prohibit deceptive stealth bots that intentionally misrepresent their identity or impersonate human users in connection with generative AI services, and would authorize the Federal Trade Commission to enforce such requirements through civil penalties against violators, according to a bill summary provided by Rep. Lee’s staff.
“The Stealth Bot Prohibition Act establishes common-sense transparency standards that help businesses protect their networks, safeguard proprietary information, and better understand how AI systems interact with online content,” said Rep. Lee.
“Stealth crawler bots are being deployed in deceptive ways by data scrapers to access digital platforms and websites without consent, harming creative work by scraping large amounts of unauthorized web data and content,” said Rep. Foushee. “Congress needs legislation that responds to these risks and protects creative and online content from misuse by requiring bot transparency and authorizing the Federal Trade Commission and state attorneys general to intervene and pursue civil penalties against bad actors.”
The legislation is supported by the News/Media Alliance, News Corp., Advance Local, Axel Springer US, Condé Nast, Hearst Magazines, the McClatchy Media Co., Newsmax, the Tampa Bay Times, The New York Times, USA TODAY Co., Vox Media, and Reddit.