Condé Nast, Hearst among 300 publishers pressuring Congress to ban bot scraping

A coalition of over 300 major publishers, including Condé Nast and Hearst, is lobbying the U.S. Congress to pass the bipartisan Stealth Bot Prohibition Act. The proposed legislation seeks to ban unidentified AI agents from scraping and indexing website content without disclosure. Proponents argue that "stealth bots" threaten the financial viability of journalism by harvesting data without permission or accountability. While the News/Media Alliance advocates for this regulation to ensure transparency and protect content, the industry landscape remains complex. Many of these same media giants have simultaneously secured lucrative multi-year licensing deals with AI developers like OpenAI and Google to allow their content to be used for training and search. The bill aims to establish a "clean internet" by mandating that AI scrapers identify themselves, potentially subjecting non-compliant entities to Federal Trade Commission penalties and legal action from state attorneys general.