Publishers lobby Congress to ban unidentified AI bot scraping

Approximately 300 publishers, including major media entities such as Condé Nast and Hearst Magazines, are lobbying the U.S. Congress to pass the bipartisan Stealth Bot Prohibition Act. The legislation aims to regulate the use of unidentified AI agents, known as ‘stealth bots,’ which scrape and index website content without disclosure.

If enacted, the bill would require bot scrapers to identify themselves and their purposes to publishers. Failure to comply could result in civil penalties from the Federal Trade Commission, and state attorneys general would be authorized to take action against unauthorized AI scraping.

The News/Media Alliance, which supports the bill, argues that current technical tools are insufficient to protect content from malicious actors disguising their identity. Executives from publications like Vogue, Esquire, and Vanity Fair have expressed concerns that undisclosed bot traffic threatens their business models and the ability to serve readers.