No one reads the terms of service. Lawmakers want to fix that with a new 'TLDR' bill.

By Cristiano Lima

If you’ve ever blown past a website’s terms of service agreement, you wouldn’t be the first. Surveys show a vast majority of people sign off without ever giving them a glance.

But a bipartisan group of lawmakers is pushing to make it easier for consumers to understand just what they’re signing away by introducing legislation Thursday that would require sites to make easy-to-digest summaries of their terms, like a nutrition label. 

The bill — known as the TLDR Act for, well, brevity — would require sites to display a “summary statement” that not only makes their terms “easy to understand,” but also discloses whether they have been hit by recent data breaches and what sensitive personal data they collect.

That includes whether sites are pulling in users’ health data, precise location or demographic information, including race, religion, sex or age, and any breaches in the past three years. It’s a concept that with bipartisan backing could garner broader support in Congress.

Rep. Lori Trahan (D-Mass.), one of the bill’s lead sponsors, said companies are exploiting the fact that most users skip over their terms to lure them into compromising agreements that expose more of their personal information.

“It's not a surprise that some companies have taken full advantage of these contracts to include provisions that expand their control over users' personal data,” Trahan said in an interview Wednesday.

And she said convoluted service agreements are stripping consumers of the ability to make informed decisions about whether joining a given site or platform is worth the cost of entry. 

Sens. Ben Ray Luján (D-N.M.) and Bill Cassidy (R-La.) are introducing a counterpart of the measure, shared exclusively with The Technology 202.

“Users should not have to comb through pages of legal jargon in a website’s terms of services to know how their data will be used,” Cassidy said in a statement. “Requiring companies to provide an easy-to-understand summary of their terms should be mandatory and is long overdue.”

The proposal arrives as momentum grows on Capitol Hill for legislation to force digital services, particularly social media platforms, to be more transparent with users about their practices, including around data collection. 

“Congress has been extremely active on the need for privacy and antitrust legislation,” said Trahan, a prominent policymaker on privacy and tech issues on Capitol Hill. “But I think the last year has really proven that Congress needs to catch up on transparency.”

The movement gained steam after Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugendisclosed internal research data the tech giant kept on how its products may harm users. 

“So many of the [proposals] right now have been influenced by her testimony,” Trahan said.

The revelations sparked a slew of hearings on Capitol Hill and gave lawmakers hope that they may finally have enough traction to pass new rules aimed at curtailing alleged abuses by Silicon Valley giants and other tech companies.

The TLDR Act would apply broadly to commercial websites and apps, but exempts some small businesses. It would be enforced by the Federal Trade Commission and state attorneys general, who would have the power to seek civil action against companies that violate it. 

While the push to revamp U.S. antitrust laws and impose new transparency requirements for digital platforms has picked up speed, data privacy talks seemingly continue to languish. 

Last Congress, once-promising talks in the Senate broke down amid disagreements between Democrats and Republicans about whether federal standards should override state laws and give consumers a right to sue companies over privacy violations. (“Conversations are ongoing about larger privacy bills,” Trahan said.)

Ultimately, Trahan said, congressional action is needed on all three fronts: antitrust, privacy and transparency. But in the meantime, consumers should at least know what they are getting into when they browse the web or download an app, she said. 

She added, “This bill, of course, doesn't answer every harm caused by Internet companies. … But this legislation does get at an important issue that affects every American, and that's that terms of service are unreadable and it tilts the scales of power exclusively in favor of companies.”