Federal Court to Hear Dispute Over Access to Government Websites

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Case Summary

This case involves a dispute over access to the FederalRegister.gov and eCFR.gov websites. The websites are experiencing aggressive automated scraping, which is limiting programmatic access. The court will hear arguments on how to access the API. This case has significant implications for developers who rely on these websites for data. The court's decision could impact the way developers access the API in the future.

Latest development

Security Review Committee

Media Coverage · April 26, 2026

The Security Review Committee has restricted programmatic access to FederalRegister.gov and eCFR.gov due to aggressive automated scraping. This means that users will need to access the sites through developer APIs instead of scraping the websites directly. Users who are flagged as potentially automated will need to complete a CAPTCHA to gain access.

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Key Issues

• • FederalRegister.gov
• • eCFR.gov
• • API access

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update What Changed This Week

1 event

newspaper

Media Coverage 3 days ago

The Security Review Committee has restricted programmatic access to FederalRegister.gov and eCFR.gov due to aggressive automated scraping. This means that users will need to access the sites through developer APIs instead of scraping the we

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Due to aggressive automated scraping of FederalRegister.gov and eCFR.gov, programmatic access to these sites is limited to access to our extensive developer APIs. Please visit FederalRegister.gov API documentation or eCFR.gov API documentation to learn more about how to access the API. Your request has been flagged as potentially automated. If you are human user receiving this message, please complete the CAPTCHA (bot test) below and click "Request Access".

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Case Timeline

1 event

newspaper

Media Coverage April 26, 2026

Security Review Committee

The Security Review Committee has restricted programmatic access to FederalRegister.gov and eCFR.gov due to aggressive automated scraping. This means that users will need to access the sites through developer APIs instead of scraping the websites directly. Users who are flagged as potentially automated will need to complete a CAPTCHA to gain access.

newspaper Read article open_in_new

newspaper

Press Coverage

1 article

All No paywall (1) Original reporting (1)

newspaper

Coverage

Security Review Committee

Due to aggressive automated scraping of FederalRegister.gov and eCFR.gov, programmatic access to these sites is limited to access to our extensive developer APIs. Please visit FederalRegister.gov API documentation or eCFR.gov …

Apr 26, 2026 · 1 min read