A Democrat and a Republican on Monday filed a U.S. Senate bill to require companies to report to financial regulators and to the public what consumer data they collect and how they leverage it for profit.
“When a big tech company says its product is free, consumers are the ones being sold,” said Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo.
Hawley and Sen. Mark R. Warner, D-Va., introduced the Designing Accounting Safeguards to Help Broaden Oversight And Regulations on Data (DASHBOARD) Act.
“These ‘free’ products track everything we do so tech companies can sell our information to the highest bidder and use it to target us with creepy ads. Even worse, tech companies do their best to hide how much consumer data is worth and to whom it is sold,” Hawley said. “This bipartisan legislation gives consumers control of their data and will show them how much these ‘free’ services actually cost.”
Consumers are paying for free products with their data instead of with their wallets, Warner noted.
