Big Tech Antitrust Legislation
Big Tech and their beltway minions have spent months passing off dishonest talking points through multi-million-dollar TV ads, lobbying, and astroturfed campaigns – smear campaigns designed to push false narratives about the American Innovation and Choice Online Act (S.2992 / H.R. 3816) and the Open App Markets Act (S.2710 / H.R. 7030). This resource guide pushes back by providing a brief overview of the bills and how each of them is critically important to fix a broken status quo that bleeds small businesses dry, compromises our most personal data, and leaves children and families vulnerable online.
What the bills do?
The American Innovation and Choice Online Act will prevent dominant platforms from rigging marketplaces – by self-preferencing and picking winners and losers – and increase opportunity for small businesses and entrepreneurs. Rather than gatekeepers constantly favoring their own product or kneecapping competitors to pad their profits, this bill will level the playing field and put real choice back in the hands of consumers.
The Open App Markets Act will set fair, clear, and enforceable rules to protect competition and strengthen consumer protection within the app market ecosystem. Google and Apple have gatekeeper control of the dominant mobile operating systems and their app stores allow them to exclusively dictate the terms of the app marketplace, which allows them to crush competitors, prioritize their proprietary apps over the ones you love, and restrict consumer choice.
Why we need these bills?
The rise of modern tech giants was once heralded as an endless possibility fueled by Silicon Valley optimism about what the digital world could mean for our everyday lives. But the rose-colored hopefulness has since been replaced by corporate greed. Former tech-darlings have exploited their dominant and near-ubiquitous platforms to crush competitors and bleed small businesses who rely on their services to survive. Far from embodying free market or our national interests, companies like Google, Apple, Amazon, and Facebook have abused their power to chill innovation, squeeze out the next generation of American entrepreneurs, and cozy up to autocratic rulers around the world. We need safeguards to level the playing field to put users back in control to prevent Big Tech from:
- Leveraging proprietary data to damage rivals and small businesses
- Prioritizing their products over the ones you love
- Targeting children and teens with addictive products
- Copying products from sellers on their platforms
- Selling or compromising our most personal data
- Harming marginalized communities
- Turbocharging hate and disinformation online