A 11292: Prohibits the deployment of a stealth crawler in a manner that would damage, impair or burden the operation of a covered news source or otherwise cause a news source economic harm.

  
  STATE OF NEW YORK ________________________________________________________________________ 11292  IN ASSEMBLY May 8, 2026 ___________ Introduced by COMMITTEE ON RULES -- (at request of M. of A. Otis) -- read once and referred to the Committee on Science and Technology AN ACT to amend the general business law, in relation to prohibiting the use of stealth crawlers The People of the State of New York, represented in Senate and Assem- bly, do enact as follows: 1 Section 1. The general business law is amended by adding a new article 2 48 to read as follows: 3 ARTICLE 48 4 NEW YORK STEALTH CRAWLER PROHIBITION ACT 5 Section 1750. Short title. 6 1751. Definitions. 7 1752. Stealth crawler disclosure. 8 1753. Stealth crawler prohibition. 9 1754. Enforcement. 10 1755. Severability. 11 § 1750. Short title. This article shall be known and may be cited as 12 the "New York stealth crawler prohibition act". 13 § 1751. Definitions. As used in this article, the following terms 14 shall have the following meanings: 15 1. "Crawler" means software that retrieves, scans, indexes, scrapes or 16 otherwise accesses a website or other internet source, including but not 17 limited to an online crawler, spider, fetcher, client, bot, user agent, 18 AI agent or equivalent tool. 19 2. "Covered news source" means the website or any other relevant 20 source of any print, television, radio, network, cable, satellite or 21 digital publication or service which: 22 (a) performs a public-information function comparable to that tradi- 23 tionally served by journalism organizations, such as newspapers, broad- 24 casters, magazines and other periodical publications; 25 (b) makes a substantial expenditure of labor, skill, and money to 26 create, edit, produce and distribute content including by engaging indi- 27 viduals to create, edit, produce and distribute original text, audio, 28 photo, illustrative or video content concerning matters or topics of EXPLANATION--Matter in italics (underscored) is new; matter in brackets [ ] is old law to be omitted. LBD15525-03-6 
 A. 11292 2 1 interest or use to members of the public through activities such as 2 observation, video or audio recording events, interviews, research, 3 testing and analysis; 4 (c) publishes new content or updates its content on at least a monthly 5 basis and has a process for error correction and clarification; and 6 (d) has at least one thousand monthly active viewers, listeners, users 7 or subscribers in New York. 8 3. "Journalism provider" means any person that owns one or more 9 covered news sources. 10 4. "Operator" means any individual, partnership, association, firm, or 11 business entity, or any member, affiliate, subsidiary or beneficial 12 owner thereof. 13 5. "Person" means any individual, partnership, corporation, trust, 14 estate, co-operative, association, government or governmental subdivi- 15 sion, agency or other entity. 16 6. "Service provider" means an entity offering the transmission, rout- 17 ing or providing of connections for broadcast or digital online communi- 18 cations, between or among points specified or selected by a viewer, 19 listener, user or subscriber, of material of such user's choosing, with- 20 out modification to the content of the material as sent or received, 21 including an entity that provides internet access services. 22 7. "Stealth crawler" means a crawler that does not comply with section 23 seventeen hundred fifty-two of this article. 24 § 1752. Stealth crawler disclosure. A crawler that accesses a covered 25 news source shall disclose its identity and purpose at the time or 26 before it accesses the covered news source, including by: 27 (a) identifying itself via a valid and accurate user-agent string, 28 which shall state the identity of any software product making the 29 request, the version of such software product and the identity of the 30 company behind such software product; and 31 (b) disclosing the specific nature and purpose of such crawler, which 32 shall include all uses and purposes that the content of the covered news 33 source could be used for, at the time access is requested and in a 34 format that the journalism provider can access. 35 § 1753. Stealth crawler prohibition. It shall be a violation of this 36 article for any operator to deploy a stealth crawler in a manner that 37 would damage, impair or burden the operation of a covered news source or 38 otherwise cause a news source economic harm. 39 § 1754. Enforcement. 1. Whenever the attorney general shall believe 40 from evidence satisfactory to them that an operator has engaged in or is 41 about to engage in any of the acts or practices stated to be unlawful in 42 this article, they may bring an action in the name and on behalf of the 43 people of the state of New York to enjoin an operator from continuing 44 such unlawful acts or practices, and may seek civil penalties of up to 45 fifteen thousand dollars per day for each violation. If it shall appear 46 to the satisfaction of the court or justice that the defendant has 47 violated this article, no proof shall be required that any person has 48 been injured thereby. In such action preliminary relief may be granted 49 under article sixty-three of the civil practice law and rules. 50 2. (a) Pursuant to subdivision (c) of section thirty-one hundred two 51 of the civil practice law and rules, a journalism provider may request 52 the clerk of the supreme court, or a judge where there is no clerk, to 53 issue a subpoena prior to the institution of an action, to a service 54 provider for identification of an alleged violator. 55 (b) The clerk, or the judge where there is no clerk, shall within a 56 reasonable period of time issue and sign the proposed subpoena and 
 A. 11292 3 1 return it to the journalism provider for delivery to the service provid- 2 er. 3 (c) The subpoena shall authorize and order the service provider 4 receiving such subpoena to expeditiously disclose to the journalism 5 provider information sufficient to identify the alleged violator to the 6 extent such information is available to such service provider. 7 (d) A subpoena issued under this section shall include a provision 8 requiring the preservation of any relevant evidence in the possession of 9 the service provider. 10 § 1755. Severability. If any clause, sentence, paragraph, section or 11 part of this article shall be adjudged by any court of competent juris- 12 diction to be invalid and after exhaustion of all further judicial 13 review, the judgment shall not affect, impair or invalidate the remain- 14 der thereof, but shall be confined in its operation to the clause, 15 sentence, paragraph, section or part of this act directly involved in 16 the controversy in which the judgment shall have been rendered. 17 § 2. This act shall take effect on the ninetieth day after it shall 18 have become a law.