4 min read

Bipartisan Senators Mark Warner and Josh Hawley introduced a new bill on Monday that requires Facebook, Google, Amazon and other major platforms to disclose the value of their users’ data. Called The Dashboard Act (Designing Accounting Safeguards to Help Broader Oversight and Regulations on Data), this act will force companies (services with 100M active users) to regularly disclose to consumers the ways in which their data is being used, the third parties it is being shared with, and what their data is worth to the platform. The tech companies will have to undergo assessment of the data’s value once every 90 days and file an annual report to the Securities and Exchange Commission.

The use of personal data for monetization purposes by tech companies has been a bone of contention for governments and activists. Consumers lack transparency in fully understanding the terms of the exchange and decide for themselves whether they are getting a fair deal from the platform companies that monetize their data. This serves as a major obstacle for agencies like the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) seeking to address competitive and consumer harms.

“For years, social media companies have told consumers that their products are free to the user. But that’s not true — you are paying with your data instead of your wallet,” Warner said in a statement. “But the overall lack of transparency and disclosure in this market have made it impossible for users to know what they’re giving up, who else their data is being shared with, or what it’s worth to the platform,” he added.

The bill suggests the following amendments

  1. Require commercial data operators (defined as services with over 100 million monthly users) to disclose the types of data collected as well as regularly provide their users with an assessment of the  value of that data.
  2. Require commercial data operators to file an annual report on the aggregate value of user data they’ve collected, as well as contracts with third parties involving data collection.
  3. Require commercial data operators to allow users to delete all, or individual fields of data collected and disclose to users all the ways in which their data is being used.
  4. Empower the SEC (Securities and Exchange Commission) to develop methodologies for calculating data value, while encouraging the agency to facilitate flexibility to enable businesses to adopt methodologies that reflect the different uses, sectors, and business models

With this bill, the senators want to serve three important goals.

  • Consumers will be able to determine the true value of the data they are providing to platforms.
  • Making the value more transparent could increase competition by attracting competitors to the market.
  • Disclosing the economic value of consumer data will also assist antitrust enforcers in identifying unfair transactions and anti competitive transactions and practices.

Public opinion on this bill was appreciative with people calling it a right move to protect user data.

 

However, some find it insufficient. Lindsey Barrett, a staff attorney at Georgetown Law’s Institute for Public Representation Communications and Technology Clinic noted that greater transparency might not change tech companies’ practices.

She also questioned how people are to martial the info this bill would give them into better decision-making.

ITIF also argues that Hawley gets “paying” with data wrong.

Previous to the DASHBOARD Act, Senator Hawley introduced the Do Not Track Act, last month. The Do Not Track Act would prohibit web companies from collecting more data than they need to operate their services. Per the act, “first parties” — meaning sites users intentionally visit, like Amazon or Google’s search engine — will be prohibited from collecting or sharing data for ad targeting when they encounter users who have activated do-not-track. This act would be modeled after the Federal Trade Commission’s (FTC) “Do Not Call” list and allow users to opt out of non-essential data collection. This bill is introduced in Congress and is up for consideration by the Senate.

Last month, DuckDuckGo, the browser known for its privacy protection policies, also proposed a draft legislation which will require sites to respect the Do Not Track browser setting. In March, presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren’s also proposed regulating “big tech companies” by breaking up Google and Facebook.

A section-by-section summary of the Dashboard act is available here. Bill text is available here.

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Content Marketing Editor at Packt Hub. I blog about new and upcoming tech trends ranging from Data science, Web development, Programming, Cloud & Networking, IoT, Security and Game development.