Boston Globe Editorial Board: “...the measure could make a tangible difference for the small and mid-sized businesses that increasingly rely on Amazon, Google, and Facebook to reach customers”
Public Knowledge: “Nondiscrimination protections like the ones in this bill are crucial for breaking down the power of Big Tech”
DuckDuckGo: “We support the American Innovation and Choice Online Act because it will make clear that self-preferencing behavior...is illegal as well as allow consumers to actually choose the services they want to use without interference from dominant platforms”
WASHINGTON - Last week, U.S. Senator Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), Chairwoman of the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Competition Policy, Antitrust, and Consumer Rights, and Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA), Ranking Member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, announced their new bipartisan legislation to restore competition online by establishing commonsense rules of the road for dominant digital platforms to prevent them from abusing their market power to harm competition, online businesses, and consumers.
Since this announcement, businesses, policy groups, thought leaders, and advocates for Big Tech reform have spoken out to endorse the bill and call for its passage, demonstrating widespread support for the legislation.
The Boston Globe Editorial Board wrote that “...the measure could make a tangible difference for the small and mid-sized businesses that increasingly rely on Amazon, Google, and Facebook to reach customers,” while Public Knowledge emphasized that “Nondiscrimination protections like the ones in this bill are crucial for breaking down the power of Big Tech.” Accountable Tech recently announced a coalition of more than 50 groups supporting the legislation, including the Media Alliance, Family Farm Action, Decode Democracy, and the Center for Digital Democracy.
Here’s what additional businesses, policy groups, thought leaders, and advocates for Big Tech reform are saying about the bill:
Consumer Reports: “These market rules should mean that consumer choice is not artificially constricted by the largest online platforms and consumers can more easily tailor services to suit their own needs. The rules will help break down the closed product and service ecosystems that so many of us find ourselves trapped in today.”
Boston Globe Editorial Board: “...the measure could make a tangible difference for the small and mid-sized businesses that increasingly rely on Amazon, Google, and Facebook to reach customers...With evidence of the platforms’ corrosive effects mounting, statements of outrage are no longer enough.”
Spotify: “Gatekeeper platforms use their power to distort markets by manufacturing self-serving advantages at the expense of American consumers and competitors. They offer users fewer, less innovative choices and insulate themselves from competition, which leads to higher prices for consumers. At Spotify, we welcome the bipartisan introduction of the American Innovation and Choice Online Act and thank Senators Klobuchar and Grassley for their steadfast leadership. With both the House and Senate now hard at work to modernize competition law, we look forward to Congress bringing an end to these discriminatory practices for the sake of consumer choice and the digital economy.”
Consumer Federation of America: “Everyone, except the big data platforms, seems to agree that the Klobuchar/Grassley bill is a good start on defining competition policy in a manner that reforms antitrust practice. The Consumer Federation of America believes it is more than that. It is a roadmap to effective competition policy in the digital economy.”
Small Business Rising, a coalition of more than twenty national and local associations representing over 150,000 small and independent businesses: “We applaud Senator Klobuchar’s leadership on antitrust issues and her focus on the ways America’s monopoly problem negatively affects small businesses across the country. Concentrated market power remains the single biggest threat facing independent, small businesses. America’s small businesses are the backbone of our local economies and our local communities — and, yet, every day we lose more independent businesses because of the abusive and anti-competitive tactics of monopolistic corporations like Amazon.”
Roku: “Roku supports bipartisan efforts such as the American Innovation and Choice Online Act to modernize our competition laws, promote innovation, and protect consumers in the Digital Age.”
Open Markets Institute: “We know we can’t trust monopolies to play fair. Without sweeping congressional action, Big Tech corporations will continue to manipulate commerce and communications in ways that threaten our democracy and wreak havoc on the free press, workers, communities, and small businesses across the country. Sens. Klobuchar and Grassley demonstrated strong leadership in developing legislation able to attract such strong bipartisan support. This bill adds to a powerful national movement to prevent dominant corporations from unfairly controlling markets and exploiting their power to directly manipulate how working people, independent businesses, consumers, and communities make decisions and go about their lives.”
Public Knowledge: “Nondiscrimination protections like the ones in this bill are crucial for breaking down the power of Big Tech. Right now, dominant platforms can pick winners and losers to stay in power and benefit their own bottom line—to the detriment of the people who rely on them: consumers, innovators, and the small businesses. This bipartisan bill marks a meaningful step forward in the fight to protect consumers and competition online. We look forward to continuing to work with Chairwoman Klobuchar, Ranking Member Grassley, and the bipartisan group of cosponsors to strengthen the nondiscrimination protections in this bill. We want to cut down on the additional hoops enforcers have to jump through to bring a case against Big Tech discrimination, so that competition on and against dominant digital platforms will have a fair shot.”
Yelp: “We applaud today’s introduction of the American Innovation and Choice Online Act. We thank Chair Klobuchar and Senator Grassley for the thoughtful crafting of this legislation. If passed into law, the proposal would strengthen and expand the tools at the government's disposal to restore competitiveness in the online market and promote an open and pluralistic web for consumers.”
Match Group: “This legislation directly addresses the threats to a competitive and fair marketplace that Senators Klobuchar and Lee identified during their April hearing. We support this bipartisan approach from Senators Klobuchar and Grassley, which establishes important protections that will put a stop to monopolies using their dominant position to charge discriminatory monopoly rents and unfairly control access to customers.”
Public Citizen: “We applaud this bipartisan group of senators, led by Sens. Klobuchar and Grassley, for taking a major step forward towards bringing real accountability and change to Big Tech. This legislation, combined with other bipartisan bills in the U.S. House are a serious and substantive set of solutions to address the power and abuses of Big Tech that have resulted in real harms to workers, small businesses, consumers, and innovation. We look forward to moving this proposal forward as well as additional measures to address the range of Big Tech abuses.”
Accountable Tech: “Big Tech corporations have been abusing their monopoly power for years, blatantly self-dealing and rigging marketplaces under the presumption that Congress would fail to stop them. This bill takes direct aim at some of the most exploitative tactics Silicon Valley giants have long employed to unfairly entrench their dominance at the expense of consumers and competition. And it demonstrates unequivocally that lawmakers are ready to work across the aisle to take significant action to rein in Big Tech. We thank Senators Klobuchar and Grassley for their bipartisan leadership, and look forward to Congress moving forward on the full suite of aggressive antitrust reforms needed to unwind decades of corporate consolidation that – along with other Big Tech abuses that must separately be addressed – has undermined American democracy.”
DuckDuckGo: "When Google and other dominant tech companies self-preference their own products across their platforms, forcing people to use their services by default, it unfairly and purposefully blocks competitors like DuckDuckGo. And in the case of companies like Google and Facebook in particular, not only does this hurt competitors like us, it also significantly damages our society and democracy by pushing people into their surveillance business models. We support the American Innovation and Choice Online Act because it will make clear that self-preferencing behavior like this is illegal as well as allow consumers to actually choose the services they want to use without interference from dominant platforms.”
Coalition for App Fairness: “The Coalition for App Fairness is encouraged that members of Congress in both parties are paying attention to the anti-competitive practices of Apple and other tech gatekeepers. We appreciate Senators Klobuchar and Grassley for their leadership and look forward to continuing our work to address the specific concerns of app developers and consumers around the world.”
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