Bipartisan bill would force AI crawlers to identify themselves

Reps. Laurel Lee (R-FL), Valerie Foushee (D-NC), and Gus Bilirakis (R-FL) introduced the Stealth Bot Prohibition Act, H.R. 9915, on July 23, 2026, which would require AI crawlers — including those disguising themselves as residential traffic — to disclose their identity and purpose. The News/Media Alliance, a publishers’ trade group, praised the bipartisan bill as a national extension of state-level transparency rules already proposed in Missouri, Nebraska, Tennessee, Texas, and Utah.