Network Working Group T. Bray
Internet-Draft Textuality
Updates: 2616 (if approved) December 16, 2014
Intended status: Standards Track
Expires: June 19, 2015
An HTTP Status Code to Report Legal Obstacles
draft-tbray-http-legally-restricted-status-05
Abstract
This document specifies a Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) status
code for use when resource access is denied as a consequence of legal
demands.
Status of This Memo
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Bray Expires June 19, 2015 [Page 1]Internet-Draft HTTP-status-451 December 2014Table of Contents
1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
2. Requirements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
3. 451 Unavailable For Legal Reasons . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
4. Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
5. IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
6. Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
Appendix A. Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
Author's Address . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
1. Introduction
This document specifies a Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) status
code for use when a server operator has a received a legal demand to
deny access to a resource.
This status code may be used to provide transparency in circumstances
where issues of law or public policy affect server operations. This
transparency may be beneficial both to these operators and to end
users.
[RFC4924] discusses the forces working against transparent operation
of the Internet; these clearly include legal interventions to
restrict access to content. As that document notes, and as Section 4
of [RFC4084] states, such restrictions should be made explicit.
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.
2. Requirements
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 [RFC2119].
3. 451 Unavailable For Legal Reasons
This status code indicates that the server is denying access to the
resource as a consequence of a legal demand.
The server in question may not be an origin server. This type of
legal demand typically most directly affects 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: the party
Bray Expires June 19, 2015 [Page 2]Internet-Draft HTTP-status-451 December 2014
making it, the applicable legislation or regulation, and what classes
of person and resource it applies to. For example:
HTTP/1.1 451 Unavailable For Legal Reasons
Content-Type: text/html
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