# News Industry Executives Push Congress to Expose Hidden AI Bots By Riza Dagoc Canonical URL: https://www.tokenpost.com/news/regulation/29894 Published: 2026-10-11T18:13:18.000Z Updated: 2026-10-11T18:13:18.000Z Section: Regulation > More than 250 people attended a Washington event and planned meetings with lawmakers over a bill requiring bots to identify themselves and disclose their purpose. More than 250 people attended a Washington event tied to a push for legislation requiring automated systems to identify themselves and disclose why they are accessing websites, as publishers and technology companies confront undisclosed AI-related scraping. The attendees, including executives from news organizations, gathered for a News/Media Alliance dinner on Sept. 29 and planned to meet with lawmakers and congressional staff the following day. The effort centers on the bipartisan Stealth Bot Prohibition Act, H.R. 9915. Representatives Laurel Lee, Valerie Foushee and Gus Bilirakis introduced the bill July 23. It was referred to the House Energy and Commerce Committee. The proposal defines a bot broadly as software that retrieves, scans, indexes, scrapes or otherwise accesses internet sources. The definition includes artificial intelligence agents and user agents. Software could qualify as a “stealth bot” if it fails to use a valid and accurate user-agent string or does not disclose its specific purpose. Covered purposes include training, fine-tuning, retrieval-augmented generation, search indexing and other automated processing. The Federal Trade Commission could seek civil penalties of up to $53,000 per violation, adjusted annually for inflation, along with court injunctions. State attorneys general could bring civil actions seeking injunctions, damages, restitution or other relief for residents. “We are drowning in bot traffic that is hurting our ability to serve our readers, and existing technical tools simply aren’t enough to protect our content from malicious foreign actors that can disguise their identity,” said Danielle Coffey, president and CEO of the News/Media Alliance. “AI companies are using disguised bots to scrape and steal original journalism with zero accountability,” said Roger Lynch, CEO of Condé Nast. The bill addresses bot transparency and deceptive access rather than creating a general licensing requirement for AI training data. It would target conduct such as impersonating human users or hiding a bot’s intended use when requesting website access. Listed supporters include News Corp, Advance Local, Axel Springer US, Condé Nast, Hearst Magazines, McClatchy Media Company, The New York Times, USA TODAY Co., Vox Media and Reddit. The legislation would take effect 180 days after enactment. It has not passed the House or Senate and has not become law. The proposal follows broader disputes over the use of journalism in artificial intelligence systems, including the [lawsuit by USA TODAY Co. and other publishers against OpenAI](). ## Links in this article - [lawsuit by USA TODAY Co. and other publishers against OpenAI](https://www.tokenpost.com/news/regulation/28641)