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Senate bill · S9934 (2025-26)

Relates to prohibiting the use of stealth crawlers

New York State Senate

Same as A11292, the matching bill in the Assembly.

PassedLatest action Jun 5, 2026

Sponsor: Michael Gianaris (Democratic/Working Families)

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From NY Open Legislation, the NY Senate and Assembly, and official rosters. This record was last updated Oct 23, 2026. About our data

Summary

Prohibits the deployment of a stealth crawler in a manner that would damage, impair or burden the operation of a covered news source or otherwise cause a news source economic harm.

Summary from NY Open Legislation. How we handle summaries

Amends the General Business Law.

Purpose, from the sponsor's memo

Section one of the bill amends the general business law by adding a new article 48. - Section 1750 provides the short title, the "New York Stealth Crawler Prohibition Act." -Section 1751 defines the following terms: crawler, covered news site, journalism provider, person, service provider, and stealth crawler. For the purposes of this article, an automated bot designed to scrape online content constitutes a "stealth crawler" if it accesses a covered news site without disclosing its identity or purpose. -Section 1752 provides that it shall be a violation of this article for any person to deploy a stealth crawler in a manner that would damage, impair or burden the operation of a covered news site or otherwise cause a news site economic harm. -Section 1753 relates to the enforcement of this article, authorizing aggrieved journalism providers to seek an injunction and recover damages. This section also authorizes journalism providers to request a subpoena against a service provider for the identification of an alleged violator. - Section 1754 provides a severability clause. Section two of the bill sets the effective date.

Filed with the bill. Read it on nysenate.gov (opens in a new tab)

Where it stands

Passed the legislature and is awaiting a signature.

  1. Introduced
  2. In committee
  3. Up for a vote
  4. Passed one chamber
  5. Passed
  6. Enacted

Committee

Codes · New York State Assembly

Also referred to Codes · New York State Senate, Internet And Technology · New York State Senate.

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Cosponsors

Showing the cosponsors who are on Agora, A to Z. The official record may list more.

Read on NY Senate (opens in a new tab)
  • Democratic1

Shown in neutral colors by design; Agora is non-partisan.

The sponsor's argument

Why Michael Gianaris says this is needed

Stealth web crawlers, or automated bots that scrape online content while evading detection, pose a growing threat to New York's news publishers, digital markets and the public interest. AI developers have begun to deploy these bots in recent years with the goal of extracting journalism without authorization only for them to turn around and reformat this content for AI consumption. In other words, stealth crawlers have enabled tech companies to free ride off of the hard work of dedicated journalists, all while diverting readers away from the publishers' own websites. This has resulted in a decrease in subscription and advertis- ing revenue for the news publishers, thus denying compensation to the very journalists we all depend onto separate the truth from the lies. Journalists are not the only ones who are adversely impacted; the proliferation of these bots has also been detrimental to the public at large. By facilitating the spread of unreliable AI generated content, stealth crawlers make it much harder for fact-checked, editorial controlled joumalism to get exposure, leaving the public much less info- luied. What's more, stealth crawlers impose significant operational costs on publishers' technological infrastructure. Because bots generate a ton of web traffic to these news sites all of which must be processed before the bots can be filtered or blocked publishers are forced to scale their infrastructure to handle peak volumes. Not even a paywall is enough to stop these stealth crawlers: some bots have been found to retrieve entire articles hidden under a paywall. As a result, publishers must invest millions of dollars in increased bandwidth and enhanced cyberse- curity tools to fend off the AI bots that are causing them to lose revenue. We cannot continue to allow these stealth crawlers to weaken local jour- nalism, a sector critical to democratic governance. New York State has a compelling interest in cracking down on these automated news scrapers to preserve local journalism, safeguard digital infrastructure, and ensure fair competition within its jurisdiction. The New York Stealth Crawler Prohibition Act would, thus, make it unlawful to deploy unauthorized stealth crawlers in a manner that would damage, impair or burden the operation of a covered news site or otherwise cause the news site economic harm.

This is the sponsor's own case for the bill, quoted from their memorandum. It is not Agora's description of what the bill does.

Recorded votes

  • Vote: Floor vote

    NY SenateJun 2, 2026Result: passed

    (60) (1) (0) (2)

  • Vote: Committee vote · Internet And Technology

    Senate Internet And TechnologyMay 21, 2026Result: passed

    (6) (1) (0) (0)

Full history

  1. Jun 5, 2026

    Ordered to Third Reading Rules CAL.633

    ORDERED TO THIRD READING RULES CAL.633

    NY Assembly

  2. Jun 5, 2026

    Passed a chamber

    PASSED ASSEMBLY

    NY Assembly

  3. Jun 5, 2026

    Reported out of committee

    REPORTED

    NY Assembly

  4. Jun 5, 2026

    Substituted

    SUBSTITUTED FOR A11292

    NY Assembly

  5. Jun 2, 2026

    Sent to the executive

    DELIVERED TO ASSEMBLY

    NY Senate

Show full history (10 earlier events)
  1. Jun 2, 2026

    Passed a chamber

    PASSED SENATE

    NY Senate

  2. Jun 2, 2026

    Referred to committee

    REFERRED TO CODES

    NY Assembly

  3. May 27, 2026

    Advanced to Third Reading

    ADVANCED TO THIRD READING

    NY Senate

  4. May 26, 2026

    2ND Report CAL.

    2ND REPORT CAL.

    NY Senate

  5. May 21, 2026

    1ST Report CAL.1326

    1ST REPORT CAL.1326

    NY Senate

  6. May 20, 2026

    Reported out of committee

    REPORTED REFERRED TO RULES

    NY Assembly

  7. May 13, 2026

    Reported out of committee

    REPORTED REFERRED TO CODES

    NY Assembly

  8. May 12, 2026

    Amend and Recommit to Internet and Technology

    AMEND AND RECOMMIT TO INTERNET AND TECHNOLOGY

    NY Senate

  9. May 8, 2026

    Referred to committee

    REFERRED TO SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

    NY Assembly

  10. Apr 16, 2026

    Referred to committee

    REFERRED TO INTERNET AND TECHNOLOGY

    NY Senate

Read the record