EFF Joins 18 Civil Rights Organizations Calling on Governor Hochul to Reject the Stealth Crawler Prohibition Act

According to EFF Deeplinks, nineteen civil rights organizations are urging New York Governor Kathy Hochul to veto the Stealth Crawler Prohibition Act. The bill would require web crawlers to disclose their identity and purpose, and would grant media outlets court subpoenas to unmask anonymous automated web traffic. The EFF and allies argue this threatens digital privacy and would chill investigative journalism and cybersecurity research. Anonymous crawlers have already allowed news outlets like The Markup to investigate anti-competitive practices by major tech companies. The groups call for technical solutions to server-strain problems instead of policies that deanonymize the web.

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