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Bray 3 Internet-Draft Google 4 Updates: 2616 (if approved) July 10, 2012 5 Intended status: Standards Track 6 Expires: January 11, 2013 8 A New HTTP Status Code to Report Legal Obstacles 9 draft-tbray-http-legally-restricted-status-01 11 Abstract 13 This document specifies an additional Hypertext Transfer Protocol 14 (HTTP) status code for use when resource access is denied due to 15 legal demands. 17 Status of this Memo 19 This Internet-Draft is submitted in full conformance with the 20 provisions of BCP 78 and BCP 79. 22 Internet-Drafts are working documents of the Internet Engineering 23 Task Force (IETF). Note that other groups may also distribute 24 working documents as Internet-Drafts. The list of current Internet- 25 Drafts is at http://datatracker.ietf.org/drafts/current/. 27 Internet-Drafts are draft documents valid for a maximum of six months 28 and may be updated, replaced, or obsoleted by other documents at any 29 time. It is inappropriate to use Internet-Drafts as reference 30 material or to cite them other than as "work in progress." 32 This Internet-Draft will expire on January 11, 2013. 34 Copyright Notice 36 Copyright (c) 2012 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the 37 document authors. All rights reserved. 39 This document is subject to BCP 78 and the IETF Trust's Legal 40 Provisions Relating to IETF Documents 41 (http://trustee.ietf.org/license-info) in effect on the date of 42 publication of this document. Please review these documents 43 carefully, as they describe your rights and restrictions with respect 44 to this document. Code Components extracted from this document must 45 include Simplified BSD License text as described in Section 4.e of 46 the Trust Legal Provisions and are provided without warranty as 47 described in the Simplified BSD License. 49 Table of Contents 51 1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 52 2. Requirements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 53 3. 451 Unavailable For Legal Reasons . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 54 4. Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 55 5. IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 56 6. Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 57 Appendix A. Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 58 Author's Address . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 60 1. Introduction 62 This document specifies an additional Hypertext Transfer Protocol 63 (HTTP) status code for use when resource access is denied due to 64 legal demands. This allows server operators to provide greater 65 transparency in circumstances where issues of law or public policy 66 affect their operation. This transparency may be beneficial both to 67 these operators and to end users. 69 Feedback should occur on the ietf-http-wg@w3.org mailing list, 70 although this draft is NOT a work item of the IETF HTTPbis Working 71 Group. 73 2. Requirements 75 The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT", 76 "SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and "OPTIONAL" in this 77 document are to be interpreted as described in [RFC2119]. 79 3. 451 Unavailable For Legal Reasons 81 This status code indicates that the server is denying access to the 82 resource in response to a legal demand. 84 Since such demands typically apply to all operators in a legal 85 jurisdiction, the server in question may or may not be an origin 86 server. The demands typically most directly affect the operations of 87 ISPs and search engines. 89 Responses using this status code SHOULD include an explanation, in 90 the response body, of the details of the legal demand: which legal 91 authority is making it, and what class of resources it applies to. 92 For example: 94 HTTP/1.1 451 Unavailable For Legal Reasons 95 Content-Type: text/html 97 98 99 Unavailable For Legal Reasons 100 101 102

Unavailable For Legal Reasons

103

This request may not be serviced in the Roman Province 104 of Judea due to the Lex Julia Majestatis, which disallows 105 access to resources hosted on servers deemed to be 106 operated by the People's Front of Judea.

107 108 110 The use of the 451 status code implies neither the existence nor non- 111 existence of the resource named in the request. That is to say, it 112 is possible that if the legal demands were removed, a request for the 113 resource still might not succeed. 115 4. Security Considerations 117 4.1. 451 Unavailable for Legal Reasons 119 The 451 status code is optional; clients cannot rely upon its use. 120 It is possible that certain legal authorities may wish to avoid 121 transparency, and not only demand the restriction of access to 122 certain resources, but also avoid disclosing that the demand was 123 made. 125 5. IANA Considerations 127 The HTTP Status Codes Registry should be updated with the following 128 entries: 130 o Code: 451 131 o Description: Unavailable for Legal Reasons 132 o Specification: [ this document ] 134 6. Normative References 136 [RFC2119] Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate 137 Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119, March 1997. 139 Appendix A. Acknowledgements 141 Thanks to Terence Eden, who observed that the existing status code 142 403 was not really suitable for this situation, and suggested the 143 creation of a new status code. 145 Thanks also to Ray Bradbury. 147 The author takes all responsibility for errors and omissions. 149 Author's Address 151 Tim Bray 152 Google 154 Email: tbray@textuality.com 155 URI: http://www.tbray.org/ongoing/