US lawmakers have been threatening for years to crack down on Facebook with strong regulations that would prevent it from abusing its access to our personal data. And now, a huge group of bipartisan lawmakers have taken the first step toward making that happen by introducing the Advertising Middlemen Endangering Rigorous Internet Competition Accountability Act, or the AMERICA Act. According to Sen. Mike Lee, one of the authors of this bill, it will prevent big tech companies like Facebook from dominating data and the digital advertising market.

Authored by an impressively long list of bipartisan lawmakers, this bill would compel companies like Facebook to “protect the interests” of customers in its advertising space.

“Companies like… Facebook have been able to exploit their unprecedented troves of detailed user data to obtain vice grip-like control over digital advertising, amassing power on every side of the market and using it to block competition and take advantage of their customers,” Sen. Lee said. “If enacted into law, this bill would most likely require… Facebook to divest significant portions of their advertising businesses — business units that account for or facilitate a large portion of their ad revenue.”

Of course, this would be a devastating blow to Facebook’s financial interests, so you can be sure the company will do everything it can to kill this legislation. However, it’s encouraging to finally see some movement on this long-promised regulation.

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