HouseH.R. 9915119th Congress
Stealth Bot Prohibition Act
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[Congressional Bills 119th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H.R. 9915 Introduced in House (IH)]
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119th CONGRESS
2d Session
H. R. 9915
To prohibit stealth bots, and for other purposes.
_______________________________________________________________________
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
July 23, 2026
Ms. Lee of Florida (for herself, Mrs. Foushee, and Mr. Bilirakis)
introduced the following bill; which was referred to the Committee on
Energy and Commerce
_______________________________________________________________________
A BILL
To prohibit stealth bots, and for other purposes.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the
United States of America in Congress assembled,
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.
This Act may be cited as the ``Stealth Bot Prohibition Act''.
SEC. 2. PROHIBITION OF STEALTH BOTS.
(a) Prohibition.--A person may not--
(1) deploy, direct, or cause to be deployed, a stealth bot
to access a website, digital platform, or online service in a
manner that is reasonably likely to damage, impair, or burden
the technical or commercial operation of a website or other
internet service; or
(2) intentionally misrepresent, conceal, or obscure the
nature of the bot to appear as a human user for use in
connection with a generative AI model or service.
(b) Enforcement.--
(1) Civil action.--The Federal Trade Commission may
commence a civil action in any district court of the United
States to recover a civil penalty for a violation of subsection
(a) or to enjoin any person from committing a violation of
subsection (a).
(2) Penalty.--The penalty for each violation of subsection
(a) may not exceed $53,000 (as adjusted on January 1 each year
by the percentage increase (if any), during the preceding 12-
month period, in the Consumer Price Index for All Urban
Consumers published by the Bureau of Labor Statistics).
(3) Powers of commission.--Notwithstanding paragraphs (1)
and (2), the Commission shall have the same jurisdiction,
powers, and duties to enforce this section as though the
applicable terms and conditions of the Federal Trade Commission
Act were incorporated and made part of this section.
(4) Rules of construction.--Nothing in this section may be
construed to--
(A) limit the authority of the Commission under any
other provision of law; or
(B) authorize the Commission to issue regulations.
(c) Actions by States.--
(1) In general.--In any case in which the attorney general
of a State, or an official or agency of a State, has reason to
believe that an interest of the residents of such State has
been or is threatened or adversely affected by an act or
practice in violation of subsection (a) or a regulation
promulgated under such subsection, the State, as parens
patriae, may bring a civil action on behalf of the residents of
the State in an appropriate district court of the United States
to--
(A) enjoin such act or practice;
(B) enforce compliance with such subsection or such
regulation;
(C) obtain damages, restitution, or other
compensation on behalf of residents of the State; or
(D) obtain such other legal and equitable relief as
the court may consider to be appropriate.
(2) Notice.--Before filing an action under this subsection,
the attorney general, official, or agency of the State involved
shall provide to the Federal Trade Commission a written notice
of such action and a copy of the complaint for such action. If
the attorney general, official, or agency determines that it is
not feasible to provide the notice described in this paragraph
before the filing of the action, the attorney general,
official, or agency shall provide written notice of the action
and a copy of the complaint to the Federal Trade Commission
immediately upon the filing of the action.
(3) Authority of federal trade commission.--
(A) In general.--On receiving notice under
paragraph (2) of an action under this subsection, the
Federal Trade Commission shall have the right--
(i) to intervene in the action;
(ii) upon so intervening, to be heard on
all matters arising therein; and
(iii) to file petitions for appeal.
(B) Limitation on state action while federal action
is pending.--If the Federal Trade Commission or the
Attorney General of the United States has instituted a
civil action for violation of subsection (a) or a
regulation promulgated under such subsection (referred
to in this subparagraph as the ``Federal action''), no
State attorney general, official, or agency may bring
an action under this subsection during the pendency of
the Federal action against any defendant named in the
complaint in the Federal action for any violation of
such subsection or regulation alleged in such
complaint.
(4) Rule of construction.--For purposes of bringing a civil
action under this subsection, nothing in this Act may be
construed to prevent an attorney general, official, or agency
of a State from exercising the powers conferred on the attorney
general, official, or agency by the laws of such State to
conduct investigations, administer oaths and affirmations, or
compel the attendance of witnesses or the production of
documentary and other evidence.
(d) Definitions.--In this section:
(1) Artificial intelligence; ai.--The terms ``artificial
intelligence'' and ``AI'' have the meaning given the term
``artificial intelligence'' in section 5002 of the National
Artificial Intelligence Initiative Act of 2020 (15 U.S.C. 9401)
as of the date of the enactment of this section.
(2) Bot.--The term ``bot'' means software that retrieves,
scans, indexes, scrapes, or otherwise accesses a website or
other internet source, including but not limited to an online
crawler, spider, fetcher, client, user agent, AI agent, or
equivalent tool.
(3) Commission.--The term ``Commission'' means the Federal
Trade Commission.
(4) Generative ai.--The term ``generative AI'' means
artificial intelligence that is capable of generating content
such as code, images, music, text, simulations, 3D renderings
of objects, or videos.
(5) State.--The term ``State'' means each of the several
States, the District of Columbia, each commonwealth, territory,
or possession of the United States, and each federally
recognized Indian Tribe.
(6) Stealth bot.--The term ``stealth bot'' means a bot that
accesses, retrieves, scans, indexes, scrapes, or otherwise
interacts with a website, digital platform, or online service
without prior disclosure of its identity and purpose, in
particular by--
(A) failing to identify itself including through a
valid and accurate user-agent string; or
(B) failing to disclose the specific nature and
purpose of the bot, including any proposed use and
purpose of page content (including text and data
mining, search indexing, inferencing, artificial
intelligence development, support, or operations (such
as training, fine tuning, retrieval augmented
generation)) or other automated processing at the time
access is requested and in a format that the website
operator can access.
(e) Limitations Period, Relationship to Other Laws, and
Severability.--
(1) Limitations period.--A civil action may not be filed
under this section unless the action is commenced within six
years after the date on which the violation occurred.
(2) Relationship to other laws.--Nothing in this section
shall affect any right, limitation, or remedy available under
any other Federal or State law or the United States
Constitution.
(f) Effective Date.--This section shall take effect 180 days after
the date of the enactment of this Act.
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