Three Democratic members of Congress filed legislation on Tuesday to prohibit "surveillance advertising," or the exploitation of personal data for targeted advertising.
The Banning Surveillance Advertising Act would have a significant impact on Facebook, Google DoubleClick, and other companies that provide tailored advertising.
The bill was introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives by Reps. Anna Eshoo of California and Jan Schakowsky of Illinois, and in the Senate by Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey.
"The 'surveillance advertising' business model is premised on the unseemly collection and hoarding of personal data to enable ad targeting," Eshoo, the bill's lead sponsor, said in a Tuesday statement.
"This pernicious practice allows online platforms to chase user engagement at great cost to our society, and it fuels disinformation, discrimination, voter suppression, privacy abuses, and so many other harms. The surveillance advertising business model is broken."
The bill, if passed, would have a significant impact on Facebook and Google's business models. On concerns like privacy, disinformation, and content moderation, policymakers have debated methods to govern the digital industry for years. The existing advertising structures of the internet sector, according to Eshoo and her co-sponsors, incentivise the dissemination of dangerous information and urge them to magnify negative messages in order to maintain consumers on their platforms.
However, there is a provision in the bill that allows for broad geographic targeting to a well-known site such as a city. It also allows users to see ads that are relevant to the content they are presently reading. According to a summary of the regulations, targeted ads only increase the efficacy of advertisers by 4% when compared to contextual ads in 2019.
Since Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen appeared before Congress last year, lawmakers have introduced a slew of new legislation to regulate social media algorithms in order to combat the spread of harmful content. In October, House Democrats introduced legislation that would remove a platform's Section 230 liability protections if its algorithms were shown to have promoted dangerous content to consumers.
Sen. Richard Blumenthal said at Haugen's first Senate hearing that the leaks indicate "that Facebook routinely puts profits ahead of kids' online safety," and that "we know it chooses the growth of its products over the well-being of our children."
The bill gives the Federal Trade Commission and state attorneys general the authority to enforce the new ad targeting rules, which will be enforced by the Federal Trade Commission. Individual users can also sue companies like Facebook and Google if they break the law, with a maximum of $5,000 in damages per violation.
