3 House Members Introduce Bot Disclosure Bill to Curb Content Theft

2 articles · Updated · USA TODAY · Aug 13

Reps. Laurel Lee, Valerie Foushee and Gus Bilirakis introduced the Stealth Bot Prohibition Act, a bipartisan bill that would require automated crawlers to disclose their identity and purpose.
Publishers say millions of disguised "bad bots" are scraping content, slowing websites and driving up server, bandwidth and electricity costs without generating ad clicks or subscriptions.
The proposal would not ban bots outright; it would give content providers clearer information to block abusive traffic themselves, with FTC and other enforcement mechanisms backing compliance.
News outlets argue the hidden scraping also feeds a multibillion-dollar reseller market for AI training data, weakening direct licensing and accelerating traffic losses as users turn to chatbots instead of source websites.