This week, the state of Virginia became the second to pass its own version of the Consumer Data Protection Act — a sweeping regulatory bill aimed at protecting user privacy. And while it would be easy to imagine that Facebook would be opposed to legislation like this, it’s actually quite the opposite. The social media giant is publicly inviting regulation in an effort to remove some of the responsibility from itself in dealing with these complex issues.

“We welcome the CDPA and hope that it, as well as legislative proposals in other states, will serve as an impetus for Congress to pass a comprehensive federal privacy law this year,” Facebook VP Erin Egan said. “The U.S. has a unique opportunity and obligation to lead the world in protecting user privacy, and regulation is a key piece of that… We really hope that with the new administration, that this is a real moment, and we should strike while the iron is hot.”

However, Facebook saying that it wants these stricter privacy laws and actually dealing with them are two very different things. It’s unclear how the company would behave if the rubber actually met the road, but for the moment, it’s an encouraging sign for user privacy that Facebook seems open to better protections.

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