Methodology

Records of laws and bills are built from official sources: the legislature's bill page, the enrolled or chaptered text, the session law or code, the governor's signing or veto record, or congress.gov. Government actions are built from the agency's announcement and the filed complaint, order or letter. When a later court step is not yet on a public docket, the record may cite a news report for it and names that source. Otherwise, news, trackers and law-firm alerts are used only to find laws, not as the source of a fact.

Guides draw on the same official sources and on companies' own help pages, terms and policies. What a company says about its own product is attributed to the company, and each guide lists its sources.

Each record and guide is checked a second time against its sources before it is published. Records show the date they were last verified and list their sources. Where a fact could not be confirmed, the record says so under "Not yet confirmed" rather than guessing.

Lawsuits and government actions

Claims in lawsuits, investigations and letters are allegations. Listing an action does not mean a company broke the law, and records describe what the filing says, not whether it is true.

Dates

Effective dates are recorded only as the law states them, or as they follow from the state's rule for laws without a stated date. Laws with parts that start at different times list each date.

Duties

The nine duties used across the site and on the map are drawn from the provisions of each enacted law: say it is ai, remind during long chats, protect minors, check ages, crisis protocol, report to the state, limits on manipulative design, no ai therapist or licensed title and users can sue.

Updates and corrections

Records are re-checked on a schedule and when a legislature acts. What is included is set out in what counts as a chatbot law. Changes and corrections are logged on the changes page. To report an error, write to contact@chatbotlaws.com.

Related work

Chatbot Laws is published by the publisher of AI Laws by State, which covers U.S. AI laws more broadly. The Future of Privacy Forum and Public Citizen also track chatbot bills.