A New HTTP Status Code to Report Legal Obstacles

A New HTTP Status Code to Report Legal Obstacles Google

tbray@textuality.com http://www.tbray.org/ongoing/

This document specifies an additional Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) status code for use when resource access is denied due to legal demands.

This document specifies an additional Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) status code for use when resource access is denied due to legal demands. This allows server operators to provide greater transparency in circumstances where issues of law or public policy affect their operation. This transparency may be beneficial both to these operators and to end users. Feedback should occur on the ietf-http-wg@w3.org mailing list, although this draft is NOT a work item of the IETF HTTPbis Working Group.

The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT", "SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and "OPTIONAL" in this document are to be interpreted as described in .

This status code indicates that the server is denying access to the resource in response to a legal demand. Since such demands typically apply to all operators in a legal jurisdiction, the server in question may or may not be an origin server. The demands typically most directly affect the operations of ISPs and search engines. Responses using this status code SHOULD include an explanation, in the response body, of the details of the legal demand: which legal authority is making it, and what class of resources it applies to. For example:

HTTP/1.1 451 Unavailable For Legal Reasons Content-Type: text/html <html> <head> <title>Unavailable For Legal Reasons</title> </head> <body> <h1>Unavailable For Legal Reasons</h1> <p>This request may not be serviced in the Roman Province of Judea due to the Lex Julia Majestatis, which disallows access to resources hosted on servers deemed to be operated by the People’s Front of Judea.</p> </body> </html> The use of the 451 status code implies neither the existence nor non-existence of the resource named in the request. That is to say, it is possible that if the legal demands were removed, a request for the resource still might not succeed.

The 451 status code is optional; clients cannot rely upon its use. It is possible that certain legal authorities may wish to avoid transparency, and not only demand the restriction of access to certain resources, but also avoid disclosing that the demand was made.

The HTTP Status Codes Registry should be updated with the following entries: Code: 451 Description: Unavailable for Legal Reasons Specification: [ this document ]

&rfc2119;

Thanks to Terence Eden, who observed that the existing status code 403 was not really suitable for this situation, and suggested the creation of a new status code. Thanks also to Ray Bradbury. The author takes all responsibility for errors and omissions.