A new bipartisan bill would force big tech companies to routinely inform users how much money their data is worth and how it’s being used.
Senator Mark Warner, a Democrat from Virginia, and Senator Josh Hawley, a Republican from Missouri, on Monday planned to introduce the Dashboard Act, an acronym for “Designing Accounting Safeguards to Help Broader Oversight and Regulations on Data.” The bill is designed to inform consumers about what they give up when they use “free” social media platforms, the co-sponsors said.
Aside from arming consumers with more information, the increased transparency could encourage market competition and ’allow antitrust enforcers to identify potentially anti-competitive practices.’
The legislation would apply to “commercial data operators” — companies that have more than 100 million unique monthly visitors and generate revenue by harvesting user data, according to the bill’s text — such as Google GOOG, -0.48% GOOGL, -0.69% Facebook FB, +0.81% and Amazon AMZN, +0.15%
“These companies take enormous, enormous amounts of data about us,” Warner told “Axios on HBO” T, +0.51% Sunday. “If you’re an avid Facebook user, chances are Facebook knows more about you than the U.S. government knows about you. People don’t realize one, how much data is being collected; and two, they don’t realize how much that data is worth.”
Under this act, companies would be required to disclose what kinds of data they collect, the value of that data and how the data is used. They would also have to file an annual report disclosing the harvested user data’s aggregate value, along with any third-party contracts regarding such information, and give users the ability to delete all or specific portions of their data that was collected, with some exceptions.
Aside from arming consumers with more information, the increased transparency could encourage market competition and “allow antitrust enforcers to identify potentially anti-competitive practices,” Warner said in a statement.
Senator Mark Warner wagered to Axios that an individual user’s data might cost about $5 a month, though a separate analysis on Medium highlighted by the site pegs the amount at $20 a month.
“We look forward to continuing our ongoing conversations with the bill’s sponsors,” a Facebook spokesman told MarketWatch in a statement.
Spokespeople for Google and Amazon declined to comment on the bill.
Warner wagered to Axios that an individual user’s data might cost about $5 a month, though a separate analysis on Medium highlighted by the site pegs the amount at $20 a month. Facebook makes $6.42 in revenue per user worldwide and $30.12 per user in the U.S. and Canada, according to its latest earnings report, with nearly all of that revenue driven by advertising.
Some 2.5 quintillion bytes of data are created every day. If 2.5 quintillion pennies would be laid out flat, they would cover Earth five times, MarketWatch previously reported. Most of the data is harvested, stored and owned by large companies.
Hawley and Warner’s bill marked lawmakers’ latest effort to check the power of Big Tech. Senator Elizabeth Warren from Massachusetts, a contender for the Democratic presidential nomination, in March proposed breaking up companies like Facebook, Amazon and Google to promote competition.
Later that month, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg encouraged “a more active role for governments and regulators” with respect to internet companies in a Washington Post op-ed.
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