Senators Mark Warner and Josh Hawley are introducing a bill today that will force companies such as Facebook Inc., Amazon.com Inc. and Google LLC to reveal how much money they make from monetizing their customers’ data.

As reported first Sunday evening by Axios, the senators, who have both been outspoken in the past about what they believe is a lack of transparency from certain large tech companies, demand that every 90 days firms release a report detailing how much user data has made for them.

The bill is called “Designing Accounting Safeguards to Help Broaden Oversight And Regulations on Data” or “DASHBOARD.”

“These companies take enormous, enormous amounts of data about us,” Warner (pictured) told Axios. “If you’re an avid Facebook user, chances are Facebook knows more about you than the U.S. government knows about you. People don’t realize, one, how much data is being collected; and two, they don’t realize how much that data is worth.”

The senator said people have no idea just how important their data is, whether that data is related to their age, gender, what apps people use, information about their location or the relationships they’re in.

Axios went on to say that Warner and Hawley aren’t doing this so consumers can ask for any kind of payment for the data they have provided, only that companies tell the user what they are worth. It seems no one really knows what the average person’s data is worth, with some people saying it could be anywhere from $5 to $20 a month per person.

It doesn’t sound like much, but considering the number of people using certain products it’s huge in the grander scheme of things. Warner said it’s time people really understood the digital-age adage, “If it’s free, you’re the product.”

“The overall lack of transparency and disclosure in this market have made it impossible for users to know what they’re giving up, who else their data is being shared with, or what it’s worth to the platform,” he said.

Hawley was similarly critical, saying people’s personal information is sold to the highest bidders and then they are targeted with “creepy ads.” He added that tech companies so far have done “their best to hide how much consumer data is worth and to whom it is sold.”

Photo: Mark Warner/Flickr