United States of America: Introduction of bill to increase availability of digital advertisement data for academic researchers

On 20 May 2021, Congresswomen Lori Trahan and Kathy Castor introduced the Social Media DATA Act in the U.S. House of Representatives. The bill aims to unlock more information from large platforms such as Facebook and Google about their implemented digital advertisements. More specifically, the information that is to be made available includes the audience, interaction details, as well as optimization of the advertisements. According to the bill, the aforementioned information should be made available to academic researchers, as well as the Federal Trade Commission in an effort to ensure user privacy is secured.