Network Working Group T. Bray
Internet-Draft Google
Updates: 2616 (if approved) January 06, 2014
Intended status: Standards Track
Expires: July 10, 2014
An HTTP Status Code to Report Legal Obstacles
draft-tbray-http-legally-restricted-status-04
Abstract
This document specifies a Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) status
code for use when resource access is denied due to legal demands.
Status of This Memo
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Bray Expires July 10, 2014 [Page 1]Internet-Draft HTTP-status-451 January 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 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
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. It may be used to provide 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.
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 in response to a legal demand.
Since such demands typically apply to all operators in a legal
jurisdiction, the server in question 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: the party
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
Bray Expires July 10, 2014 [Page 2]Internet-Draft HTTP-status-451 January 2014
<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
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