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By John D. McKinnon 

WASHINGTON -- Prosecutors and victims will have greater power to go after websites that have facilitated the online sex business, under a new bill passed by the Senate Wednesday, and big tech companies fear it will open the door to greater regulation by Washington.

The Senate passed the bill, 97 to 2, and sent it to President Donald Trump, who is expected to sign it. The House passed it last month.

The bill's passage marked a rare political defeat for the technology industry, which has become a powerful lobbying force in Washington in recent years. Large companies like Alphabet Inc.'s Google long resisted any change to the immunity law, fearing it could lead to a greater erosion of their congressionally granted legal protections against being held liable for what users post online.

But a series of political misfortunes -- including Russian use of online platforms to meddle in the 2016 election -- have diminished the tech industry's standing in Washington, and opened the door to Wednesday's lopsided loss.

The legislation's success could encourage lawmakers to consider other limits on legal immunity for online platforms in the U.S. and in Europe. Policy makers in Europe have been weighing efforts to hold tech companies liable for a range of internet abuses, including hate speech.

Ivanka Trump, the president's daughter and adviser, has been a major supporter of the legislation, holding an event with bill sponsors at the White House last week.

"The buying and selling of young boys and girls -- this is a hidden crime," Ms. Trump said. The group's goal is to "make sure that modern slavery comes to its long overdue end."

White House officials said recently that "ending online human trafficking is a major priority of this administration."

The bill is aimed at helping prosecutors and victims go after websites that have facilitated the online sex business by removing federal immunity for those online businesses.

The immunity law was adopted by Congress in the 1990s as a way to nurture the internet, which was then at a fledgling stage. Trafficking lawsuits against online businesses -- notably Backpage.com, a classified-ad site -- have usually been tossed out of court because of the immunity law, with tech groups at times lining up in support of Backpage.com.

Sen. Richard Blumenthal, a Connecticut Democrat who led the charge for the bill along with Sen. Rob Portman (R., Ohio), said federal immunity protections for websites were "never intended to immunize completely those websites so they could knowingly facilitate sex trafficking." He said the legislation would "give survivors their day in court."

Opponents argued that the legislation could lead to more limitations on internet speech.

Sen. Ron Wyden (D., Ore.), a critic of the legislation, said big internet companies and the federal government hadn't done enough to battle online trafficking or other online ills. But after "the twin failures of the big technology companies and federal law enforcement, this body is responding to a very serious, serious moral challenge with flawed policy changes" that could have "harmful unintended consequences."

The legislation will "open the floodgates to further undermine protections for online intermediaries and thereby, free expression for all internet users," said Liz Woolery, a senior policy analyst at the Center for Democracy and Technology. "Internet platforms would be responsible for every single piece of user content, a burden that may be impossible for many companies, especially small startups, to overcome."

Critics of the large online companies say immunity that is too broad hampers efforts to address inappropriate or criminal behavior online, like abuses of personal data, terrorist recruitment, cryptocurrency fraud and other schemes.

The immunity provision "is a real world Monopoly get-out-of-jail-free card," said Scott Cleland, an internet policy analyst and critic of the tech companies.

While there is little likelihood of more legislative curbs on internet companies' immunity in the U.S. this year, the bill's overwhelming approval in both chambers shows lawmakers are willing to carve out exceptions in compelling circumstances.

Backers of the legislation say it is needed to combat an epidemic of online trafficking, which often involves minors. Sen. Blumenthal cited statistics from an anti-trafficking group showing an 840% increase in reports of suspected child sex trafficking between 2010 and 2015, largely because of increasing use of the internet to facilitate the trade.

The tech industry recently sought to subdue its opposition to the bill. On the one hand, many companies don't want to publicly oppose a measure aimed at fighting sex trafficking. But big online firms also see the immunity law as a legal pillar of the internet and fear that removing it could subject them to costly lawsuits, eroding a protection that has helped the internet flourish.

The Consumer Technology Association, a group that represents a number of big tech companies, said in a statement that "legacy businesses and disrupted competitors" might try to push further tightening of the immunity rules for online firms, in a nod to entertainment and media companies' support for the sex-trafficking legislation. But CTA said that "Congress should refuse further requests to weaken" the immunity rules.

Facebook Inc., which had come around to supporting the legislation in recent months, issued a statement praising the bill's passage: "We applaud passage of [the bill], important legislation that allows platforms to combat sex trafficking while giving victims the opportunity to seek justice against companies that don't," said Erin Egan, Facebook's vice president of U.S. public policy. "Together we can help make the internet a safer place for vulnerable children, women, and all trafficking targets."

--Natalia Drozdiak in Brussels contributed to this article.

Write to John D. McKinnon at john.mckinnon@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

March 21, 2018 17:42 ET (21:42 GMT)

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