| There is actually another bill that aims to legislate over assessing the value of user data: S.1951 - DASHBOARD act, introduced 2019-06-25. Full text: https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/senate-bill/195... Official summary: To require the Securities and Exchange Commission to promulgate regulations relating to the disclosure of certain commercial data, and for other purposes. It applies to “commercial data operators”, defined as entities offering consumer online services or a data broker with over 100M monthly users in the United States for most months over the last year. It says that they must routinely provide each user with an estimate of how much they think that users data is worth for the operator, and clearly describe the data collected and how it is used, as well as allow users to delete their data. It also says that operators must disclose every quarter to the SEC the “material value” of the user data they hold, contracts they have for collection and use of data, and the value of anything else the SEC determines is necessary. It puts the SEC in charge of figuring out a valuation methodology for the data. It also says the SEC should amend the rules for disclosures from public companies that classify as data operators to include information on how data held by them: how it is protected, liabilities, sources, revenue generated, large contracts or acquisitions of data. For public companies I believe this would significantly change how they must do their accounting, since they must treat data as an asset. It could have significant impacts on their market cap, which could be real (since more information will be available) or just a result of the new reporting rules affecting their listed assets. |