By Hank Russell
A number of civil and digital rights groups recently sent a letter to Governor Kathy Hochul urging her to veto a bill that they say would infringe upon Internet users’ First Amendment rights, thereby having a negative impact on independent journalism.
More than a dozen organizations — including the Center for Democracy & Technology, the Electronic Frontiers Foundation, New York Civil Liberties Union and the Common Crawl Foundation, among others — asked the governor to veto the Stealth Crawler Prohibition Act. The bill, introduced by state Senator Michael Gianaris (D,WF-Long Island City) and Assemblymember X Otis (D-Port Chester), would “prevent AI companies from deploying stealth crawlers, or automated bots that scrape online news content, in a manner that damages the operation of a news site.”
The legislation would also punish these bots that “damage, impair or burden the operation of a covered news source or otherwise cause a news source economic harm.” It would also allow the news site to issue a subpoena — before legal action is taken against the offender — to a service provider to obtain the offender’s identity. Punishment includes fines of $15,000 per day per violation.
“ While framed as a measure to protect local journalism, this legislation harms free expression and establishes a dangerous precedent by effectively deanonymizing and criminalizing automated access to the open web,” the signatories wrote. “By requiring all web crawlers to disclose their identity and explicit purpose, and by granting media outlets unchecked authority to obtain judicial subpoenas to unmask unidentified automated web traffic without any showing of misconduct or actual injury, this bill threatens digital privacy, compromises the foundational architecture of the internet, and will ultimately stifle the very independent journalism it seeks to protect.”
The organizations went on to say that the fines are “crushing” and Internet service providers (ISPs) would be forced to violate their customers’ privacy rights. They said that the attorney general can “enforce these penalties based purely on a subjective finding of ‘satisfactory evidence.”
Further, they claimed a subpoena can be issued “based solely on a bare, unproven allegation by a news provider—no actual evidence linking the accused to website access is required.”
They also acknowledged that artificial intelligence (AI) search results can greatly affect web traffic and advertising revenue, but noted that these unidentified web crawlers “are not the cause of this problem, and allowing publishers to unmask them will do little-to-nothing to mitigate it.”
“While [AI]is a real problem,” they continued, “it is being effectively addressed with technical standards, commercial tools, and other measures that do not impede anonymous access to information. … Rather than enacting overly broad, reactive regulations that restrict public access to information and strip away digital anonymity and privacy, we urge you to protect the digital rights and privacy of all New Yorkers.”
Long Island Life & Politics reached out to the governor’s office. A spokesperson responded, “The governor will review the bill.”