Sponsors (2)
The bill trades significantly greater transparency, user notice and appeal rights and public accountability for online account enforcement against higher compliance costs, regulatory expansion and potential privacy, safety, and competitive downsides — especially for small platforms and some users.
Online users (everyday consumers, students, small-business owners) will get clearer, advance information about what behavior can trigger account restrictions, how enforcement works, and when accounts may be suspended or terminated, improving predictability and helping people make better decisions about services and speech.
Users (individuals, small businesses, nonprofits) gain procedural protections: a required notice before suspension/termination in most cases, an appeal option and public metrics (appeal rates and reversals) to evaluate fairness, giving victims of wrongful restrictions a clearer path to challenge decisions.
Consumers and the public benefit from clearer enforcement authority and guidance because the FTC is explicitly named as the enforcement agency and will issue compliance guidance and best practices, which can streamline oversight, provide remedies (investigations, injunctions, penalties), and reduce uncertainty for providers that follow guidance.
Online service providers (especially small platforms) will face substantial new compliance and reporting costs to produce clear AUPs, send notices, maintain appeals systems, and publish reports — costs that are likely to be passed on to users as higher prices, reduced free features, or could push some small services out of the market.
Expanding explicit FTC jurisdiction and broad enforcement authority creates a risk of regulatory overreach and legal uncertainty for platforms (including nonprofits), increasing litigation and compliance burdens and making it harder for providers to predict enforcement boundaries.
Requirements to disclose that off-platform conduct can justify restrictions and options for publicizing notices could chill lawful off-platform expression and expose users to privacy or reputational harms if allegations or sensitive information are published.
Based on analysis of 7 sections of legislative text.
Requires public-facing online services to publish clear AUPs, give advance notice before account restrictions, and publish annual machine-readable enforcement reports; FTC enforces.
Official title: To require online service providers to disclose their acceptable use policies, provide users with written notice before the termination of a user's account, and publish an annual report detailing actions taken to enforce their acceptable use policies, and for other purposes.
Introduced June 10, 2025 by Craig A. Goldman · Last progress June 10, 2025
Requires public-facing online service providers to publish clear acceptable use policies, give advance notice (with limited exceptions) before suspending or terminating user accounts, and produce annual, machine-readable enforcement reports. The Federal Trade Commission enforces these requirements as unfair-or-deceptive acts or practices and must issue nonbinding compliance guidance. AUPs must explain prohibited conduct, enforcement processes (including third parties used), appeal availability, whether off-platform conduct can trigger restrictions, and notice practices. Providers must attempt to give at least seven days' written notice before restrictions except for court orders or imminent-harm emergencies; users can opt to have restriction notices published. Annual reports must include counts of alerts, restrictions, appeals, and reversals, categorized by exact AUP provision and alert source.