Human trafficking is the modern form of slavery, with illegal smuggling and trading of people, for forced labour or sexual exploitation.

Trafficking is officially defined as the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harboring, or receipt of persons by means of coercion, abduction, fraud, deception, or abuse of power of a position of vulnerability for the purpose of exploitation.

[3][4][5] The U.S. Justice Department estimates that 17,500 people are trafficked into the country every year, but the true figure could be higher, because of the large numbers of undocumented immigrants.

Existing federal law protects websites that "post third-party ads for massages, body rubs, escort services and other thinly veiled references to prostitution" from any "liability under the Communications Decency Act.

The CBO expects that the bill would apply to a relatively small number of offenders, however, so any increase in costs for law enforcement, court proceedings, or prison operations would not be significant.

[7] The Stop Advertising Victims of Exploitation Act of 2014 was introduced into the United States House of Representatives on March 13, 2014 by Rep. Ann Wagner (R, MO-2).

"[2] Wagner argued that her bill had been reviewed by the Justice Department in an attempt to ensure that it did not violate the First Amendment to the United States Constitution's guarantee of the right to free speech.

[11] The Center for Democracy and Technology has warned that the bill's overly broad language and strict sentencing guidelines would have a chilling effect on legal adult speech.

[12] The SAVE Act has also been opposed by sex workers' rights organizations, including the Red Umbrella Project, the Desiree Alliance and the Woodhull Sexual Freedom Alliance, which argued that shutting down sites like Backpage.com paradoxically increases trafficking risks for sex workers, by removing one of the only ways an independent escort can reach clients.