How did they find us?
Analytics reports can show whether a visit came from search, an ad or another website.
A website to run.
A lawsuit to answer.
A customer finds her business. An appointment comes in. Then a wiretapping claim about her website’s technology becomes another job to handle.
Supporting the Halt Abusive Internet Lawsuits Act of 2026.
The website she needed 60 secondsHAIL ActH.R. 10263 · Rep. Russ Fulcher
Introduced September 3, 2026Referred to House Judiciary · Not enacted
What the bill would changeThe proposal: a commercial-purpose bar on covered wiretapping and related claims and enforcement. Scope and privacy remedies.
A real owner’s account
The website was supposed to make her work easier.
Tami Goldsmith helped run a new heating-and-air business. Its website used a booking service. When a summons arrived, she had a technology dispute to understand as well.
Folsom Lake Heating & Air · Reported by CapRadio, June 18, 2026. The settlement amount and payer were not disclosed.
“We’re not IT people. It’s totally out of our spectrum of things that we know about.”
Tami Goldsmith, speaking to CapRadio
One owner’s experience with an unfamiliar legal problem.
Read her account and sourceWhy reform matters
Abusive lawsuits.
Real pressure to pay.
A business can incur legal fees before a court tests a claim. When defending is expected to cost more than the proposed settlement, paying can seem like the only affordable choice. That is the pressure this coalition wants Congress to address.
One owner described a $15,000 settlement option alongside an estimated $20,000 cost to contest the claim. Later reporting says she intends to defend her business. Read the dated account.
Those figures were alternatives, not verified payments. A settlement or a high defense cost alone does not establish that a claim is abusive.
Basic questions.
Everyday website tools.
A business wants to know how people find it, which services interest them and whether its website is useful. Different tools help with different jobs.
What caught their attention?
Page-view events help an owner understand which services visitors explore.
Did they request a visit?
A separate booking service receives the request. Analytics can count a configured completion event.
These functions can send information to outside providers. Data, recipients, settings and consent matter to the legal question.
Try the simple demonstrationFollow one visit in 42 secondsH.R. 10263 · The HAIL Act
A clearer rule for doing business online.
We believe ordinary website operations need a predictable legal framework. Owners should not have to work through surveillance-law disputes one demand letter at a time.
The bill proposes a federal commercial-purpose boundary for the laws it covers. That choice—and its reach—deserves a clear explanation.
What changes
Covered wiretapping, pen-register, trap-and-trace and eavesdropping claims and enforcement would be barred for commercial-purpose data practices.
What readers should know
The proposal reaches beyond small businesses and claims without harm. It also addresses pending proceedings and has no express actual-harm exception.
Our policy position is separate from the statutory summary. Read the introduced text. Official status checked September 25, 2026.
Explore the national picture
See where cases
are being filed.
Fisher Phillips’ interactive Digital Wiretapping Litigation Map lets you explore its records by state, industry and court type.
The heat map shows the distribution of tracked cases. It does not classify which claims are abusive or count unique small businesses.
Open the interactive heat mapExternal resource · Fisher Phillips
Explore the interactive map at Fisher PhillipsPublic positions
Coalition members.
Public positions.
Meet the organizations and businesses in the coalition, and read published positions on website-litigation reform. Each statement identifies the proposal it addresses.
Related reform advocacy is not presented as an endorsement of H.R. 10263.
Meet the coalitionThree questions worth asking.
Does using analytics automatically break the law?
No. A product name does not settle the legal question. Claims depend on the configuration, data, recipients, consent and legal theory. See what the court records establish.
What happens to claims involving actual harm?
HAIL contains no express exception for actual harm when its commercial-purpose bar covers a claim. Other possible remedies depend on their own requirements. Read the explanation of legal remedies.
Does California’s SB 690 solve the same problem?
It addresses a narrower civil-action route for certain online pen-register allegations. Its checked status and HAIL’s broader reach are explained in our side-by-side comparison.
Take the brief.
Keep the sources.
A one-page overview and a supporting packet, ready to read or forward.