I
119THCONGRESS
1
STSESSION H. R. 2019
To require covered entities to issue a short-form terms of service summary
statement, and for other purposes.
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
MARCH10, 2025
Mrs. T
RAHANintroduced the following bill; which was referred to the
Committee on Energy and Commerce
A BILL
To require covered entities to issue a short-form terms of
service summary statement, and for other purposes.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representa-1
tives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, 2
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE. 3
This Act may be cited as the ‘‘Terms-of-service La-4
beling, Design, and Readability Act’’ or the ‘‘TLDR Act’’. 5
SEC. 2. STANDARD TERMS OF SERVICE SUMMARY STATE-6
MENT. 7
(a) D
EADLINE FORTERMS OFSERVICESUMMARY 8
S
TATEMENT.—Not later than 360 days after the date of 9
the enactment of this Act, the Commission shall issue a 10
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rule in accordance with section 553 of title 5, United 1
States Code, with regard to a covered entity that publishes 2
or has published a terms of service— 3
(1) that requires the covered entity to include 4
a truthful and non-misleading short-form terms of 5
service summary statement on the website of the en-6
tity; 7
(2) that requires the covered entity to include 8
a truthful and non-misleading graphic data flow dia-9
gram on the website of the entity; and 10
(3) that requires the covered entity to display 11
the full terms of service of the entity in an inter-12
active data format. 13
(b) N
ONEWCONTRACTUALOBLIGATION.—The re-14
quirement to include a summary statement described in 15
subsection (a)(1) does not create any new contractual obli-16
gation. 17
(c) R
EQUIREMENTS FOR SHORT-FORMTERMS OF 18
S
ERVICESUMMARYSTATEMENT.— 19
(1) I
N GENERAL.—The short-form terms of 20
service summary statement described in subsection 21
(a)(1)— 22
(A) shall be accessible to individuals with 23
low levels of literacy and individuals with dis-24
abilities, be machine readable, and include ta-25
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bles, graphic icons, hyperlinks, or other means 1
as the Commission may require; and 2
(B) may be presented differently depend-3
ing on the interface or type of device on which 4
the statement is being accessed by the user. 5
(2) L
OCATION OF SUMMARY STATEMENT AND 6
GRAPHIC DATA FLOW DIAGRAM .—The summary 7
statement described in subsection (a)(1) shall be 8
placed at the top of the permanent terms of service 9
page of the covered entity, and the graphic data flow 10
diagram described in subsection (a)(2) shall be lo-11
cated immediately below such summary statement. 12
(3) C
ONTENTS OF SUMMARY STATEMENT .—The 13
summary statement described in subsection (a)(1) 14
shall include the following: 15
(A) The categories of sensitive information 16
that the covered entity processes. 17
(B) The sensitive information that is re-18
quired for the basic functioning of the service 19
and what sensitive information is needed for ad-20
ditional features and future feature develop-21
ment. 22
(C) A summary of the legal liabilities of a 23
user and any rights transferred from the user 24
to the covered entity, such as mandatory arbi-25
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tration, class action waiver, any licensing or 1
sale by the covered entity of the content of the 2
user, and any waiver of moral rights. 3
(D) Historical versions of the terms of 4
service and change logs. 5
(E) If the covered entity provides user de-6
letion services, directions for how the user can 7
delete sensitive information or discontinue the 8
use of sensitive information. 9
(F) A list of data breaches from the pre-10
vious 3 years reported to consumers under ex-11
isting Federal and State laws. 12
(G) The effort required by a user to read 13
the entire terms of service text, such as through 14
the total word count and approximate time to 15
read the statement. 16
(H) Any other information the Commission 17
determines to be necessary if that information 18
is included in the terms of service by the cov-19
ered entity. 20
(4) A
DDITIONAL INFORMATION REQUIRED BY 21
THE COMMISSION.—In the rule issued under sub-22
section (a), the Commission shall include a list of 23
other information the Commission determines to be 24
necessary under paragraph (3)(H). 25
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(d) GUIDANCE ON GRAPHICDATAFLOWDIA-1
GRAMS.—Not later than 360 days after the date of the 2
enactment of this Act, the Commission shall publish guide-3
lines on how a covered entity can graphically display how 4
the sensitive information of a user is shared with a sub-5
sidiary or corporate affiliate of such entity and how such 6
sensitive information is shared with third parties. 7
(e) I
NTERACTIVEDATAFORMATTERMS OFSERV-8
ICE.—Not later than 360 days after the date of the enact-9
ment of this Act, the Commission shall issue a rule in ac-10
cordance with section 553 of title 5, United States Code, 11
that requires a covered entity to tag portions of the terms 12
of services of the entity according to an interactive data 13
format. 14
(f) E
NFORCEMENT.— 15
(1) E
NFORCEMENT BY THE COMMISSION .— 16
(A) U
NFAIR OR DECEPTIVE ACTS OR PRAC -17
TICES.—A violation of this Act or a regulation 18
promulgated under this Act shall be treated as 19
a violation of a rule defining an unfair or de-20
ceptive act or practice under section 21
18(a)(1)(B) of the Federal Trade Commission 22
Act (15 U.S.C. 57a(a)(1)(B)). 23
(B) P
OWERS OF THE COMMISSION .— 24
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(i) IN GENERAL.—The Commission 1
shall enforce this section and the regula-2
tions promulgated under this section in the 3
same manner, by the same means, and 4
with the same jurisdiction, powers, and du-5
ties as though all applicable terms and pro-6
visions of the Federal Trade Commission 7
Act (15 U.S.C. 41 et seq.) were incor-8
porated into and made a part of this sec-9
tion. 10
(ii) P
RIVILEGES AND IMMUNITIES .— 11
Any person who violates this section or a 12
regulation promulgated under this section 13
shall be subject to the penalties and enti-14
tled to the privileges and immunities pro-15
vided in the Federal Trade Commission 16
Act. 17
(iii) A
UTHORITY PERSEVERED .— 18
Nothing in this section shall be construed 19
to limit the authority of the Commission 20
under any other provision of law. 21
(2) E
NFORCEMENT BY STATES .— 22
(A) I
N GENERAL.—In any case in which 23
the attorney general of a State has reason to 24
believe that an interest of at least 1,000 resi-25
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dents of that State has been or is threatened or 1
adversely affected by the engagement of any 2
person in a practice that violates this section or 3
a regulation promulgated under this section, the 4
attorney general of the State, as parens patriae, 5
may bring a civil action on behalf of the resi-6
dents of the State in a district court of the 7
United States of appropriate jurisdiction— 8
(i) to enjoin that practice; 9
(ii) to enforce compliance with this 10
section; 11
(iii) to obtain damages, restitution, or 12
other compensation on behalf of such resi-13
dents; and 14
(iv) to obtain such other relief as the 15
court may consider to be appropriate. 16
(B) R
IGHTS OF THE COMMISSION .— 17
(i) N
OTICE TO THE COMMISSION .— 18
(I) I
N GENERAL.—Except as pro-19
vided in subclause (III), the attorney 20
general of a State shall notify the 21
Commission in writing that the attor-22
ney general intends to bring a civil ac-23
tion under subparagraph (A) before 24
initiating the civil action. 25
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(II) CONTENTS.—The notifica-1
tion required by subclause (I) with re-2
spect to a civil action shall include a 3
copy of the complaint to be filed to 4
initiate the civil action. 5
(III) E
XEMPTION.—If it is not 6
feasible for the attorney general of a 7
State to provide the notification re-8
quired by subclause (I) before initi-9
ating a civil action under subpara-10
graph (A), the attorney general shall 11
notify the Commission immediately 12
upon instituting the civil action. 13
(ii) I
NTERVENTION BY THE COMMIS -14
SION.—The Commission may— 15
(I) intervene in any civil action 16
brought by the attorney general of a 17
State under subparagraph (A); and 18
(II) upon intervening— 19
(aa) be heard on all matters 20
arising in the civil action; and 21
(bb) file petitions for appeal. 22
(C) C
ONSTRUCTION.—Nothing in this 23
paragraph may be construed to prevent an at-24
torney general of a State from exercising the 25
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powers conferred on the attorney general by the 1
laws of that State to— 2
(i) conduct investigations; 3
(ii) administer oaths or affirmations; 4
or 5
(iii) compel the attendance of wit-6
nesses or the production of documentary 7
and other evidence. 8
(D) A
CTIONS BY THE COMMISSION .—In 9
any case in which an action is instituted by or 10
on behalf of the Commission for a violation of 11
this section or a regulation promulgated under 12
this section, a State may not, during the pend-13
ency of that action, institute a separate action 14
under subparagraph (A) against any defendant 15
named in the complaint in the action instituted 16
by or on behalf of the Commission for that vio-17
lation. 18
(E) V
ENUE; SERVICE OF PROCESS.— 19
(i) V
ENUE.—Any action brought 20
under subparagraph (A) may be brought 21
in— 22
(I) the district court of the 23
United States that meets applicable 24
requirements relating to venue under 25
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section 1391 of title 28, United States 1
Code; or 2
(II) another court of competent 3
jurisdiction. 4
(ii) S
ERVICE OF PROCESS.—In an ac-5
tion brought under paragraph (1), process 6
may be served in any district in which the 7
defendant— 8
(I) is an inhabitant; or 9
(II) may be found. 10
(g) D
EFINITIONS.—In this section: 11
(1) C
OMMISSION.—The term ‘‘Commission’’ 12
means the Federal Trade Commission. 13
(2) C
OVERED ENTITY.—The term ‘‘covered en-14
tity’’— 15
(A) means any person that operates a 16
website located on the internet or an online 17
service that is operated for commercial pur-18
poses; and 19
(B) does not include a small business con-20
cern (as defined in section 3 of the Small Busi-21
ness Act (15 U.S.C. 632)). 22
(3) D
ISABILITY.—The term ‘‘disability’’ has the 23
meaning given the term in section 3 of the Ameri-24
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cans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (42 U.S.C. 1
12102). 2
(4) I
NTERACTIVE DATA FORMAT .—The term 3
‘‘interactive data format’’ means an electronic data 4
format in which pieces of information are identified 5
using an interactive data standard, such as eXten-6
sible Markup Language (commonly known as 7
‘‘XML’’), that is a standardized list of electronic 8
tags that mark the information described in sub-9
section (c)(3) within the terms of service of a cov-10
ered entity. 11
(5) M
ORAL RIGHTS.—The term ‘‘moral rights’’ 12
means the rights conferred by section 106A(a) of 13
title 17, United States Code. 14
(6) P
ROCESS.—The term ‘‘process’’ means any 15
operation or set of operations performed on sensitive 16
information, including collection, analysis, organiza-17
tion, structuring, retaining, using, or otherwise han-18
dling sensitive information. 19
(7) S
ENSITIVE INFORMATION.—The term ‘‘sen-20
sitive information’’ means any of the following: 21
(A) Health information. 22
(B) Biometric information. 23
(C) Precise geolocation information. 24
(D) Social security number. 25
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(E) Information concerning the race, color, 1
religion, national origin, sex, age, or disability 2
of an individual. 3
(F) The content and parties to a commu-4
nication. 5
(G) Audio and video recordings captured 6
through a consumer device. 7
(H) Financial information, including a 8
bank account number, credit card number, 9
debit card number, or insurance policy number. 10
(I) Online browsing history, which means 11
information revealing online activities over time 12
or across websites or online services not owned 13
or operated by the covered entity. 14
(8) S
TATE.—The term ‘‘State’’ means each of 15
the several States, the District of Columbia, each 16
commonwealth, territory, or possession of the United 17
States, and each Federally recognized Indian Tribe. 18
(9) T
HIRD PARTY.—The term ‘‘third party’’ 19
means, with respect to a covered entity, a person— 20
(A) to which the covered entity disclosed 21
sensitive information; and 22
(B) that is not— 23
(i) the covered entity; 24
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(ii) a subsidiary or corporate affiliate 1
of the covered entity; or 2
(iii) a service provider of the covered 3
entity. 4
Æ
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