Instructions around the usage of meta robot tags and robots.txt files (opens in new tab)

They are doing that as well. They are posting general requirements, as well as providing details on specific situations. From the main project @ https://github.com/CMSgov/price-transparency-guide

Section: Overview

> All machine-readable files must [...] made available to the public without restrictions that would impede the re-use of that information.

Section: Public Discoverability

> These machine-readable files post made available to the public without restrictions that would impede the re-use of that information.

They do both. As well as provide a description of the regulation's goals, context and examples. This is how regulation works. It typically starts with a rather vague law, then the regulatory agencies make up general rules to implement said law. Then they create a bunch of more detailed rules. Then as times change, they amend those rules. You can even ask them about novel situations and get a (non-binding) "opinion" from government agency. In my experience, the federal gov regulatory apparatus is not as inept as most people seem to think.

That’s a good way to write a law but regulations are guidance under which the regulator won’t come after you when it considers law enforcement action i.e. the law enforcement agency’s interpretation of the law and your obligations under it. They can afford to get into the nitty gritty, and it can even be beneficial for them to do so for all involved.

This way lawyers don’t have to divine from the law that noindex and nofollow tags might invite enforcement action, if they have even heard of them before, they can read the regs, and advise their companies and clients properly.

Why not both?

Better yet in a database with consistent schema

And ban the use of PDF's - which is another way this could be avoided.

Oh and mandate clean links no funky javascipt links that search crawlers don't follow.

If you check the main read me proprietary formats are specifically not allowed, with notable examples of PDF, and excel

The US Constitution prohibits “ex post facto” laws. You can punish someone for something that wasn’t a crime when they did it.

We've changed the title from "Regulartors ban hospitals from using “noindex, nofollow” on pricing pages" to what the page says.

Submitters: If you want to say what you think is important about an article, that's fine, but do it by adding a comment to the thread. Then your view will be on a level playing field with everyone else's: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so...

My brain initially parsed "meta robot" as "megarobot" and I was really excited until I got to the last part of the sentence.

Nope, they're artistic regulators