USA to apply new laws for social networks
The US Senate wants those platforms that request user data to be obligated to provide information about what they access and what benefits they get from this.
The United States Senate has received a bill so that platforms such as social networks, which obtain personal data from their users, are obliged to publish what data they access and what economic benefits they receive for them.
Democratic Senator Mark Warner and Republican Josh Hawley have introduced the DASHBOARD act, “designing accounting guarantees to help expand oversight and regulation of data,” which seeks to shed light on user data, “one of the most valuable and at the same time intangible resources of the technological firms.”
The bill focuses on social networks with more than 100 million monthly active users who collect personal data, who are required to inform both consumers and financial regulators “exactly what data they collect from consumers and how they they take advantage of the platforms to obtain benefits”, as the text gathers.
These social media reports must include an “evaluation of the value” of the data, as well as what type they are, and the technology companies must publish them at least once a year.
Likewise, social networks should allow users to consult or delete all their data or also specific fields. The bill also aims that the National Securities Markets Commission of the United States (SEC) can “develop methodologies to calculate the value of data.”
When a large technology company says that its product is free, consumers are the ones to whom it is sold, said Hawley, who warns that these free products’track everything we do, so technology companies can sell our products information to the highest bidder or use it to send us advertisements.
K. Tovar
Source: La Vanguardia
