Letter: The American Innovation and Choice Online Act will produce “better consumer experiences, greater investment in the creation of new businesses, and more sustainable and robust economic growth”
WASHINGTON - More than 60 small and medium-sized companies and trade associations, including Spotify, Wyze, FuboTV and Quora urged the Senate to pass the American Innovation and Choice Online Act, U.S. Senators Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) and Chuck Grassley’s (R-IA) bipartisan legislation to restore competition online. In a letter addressed to all 100 members of the U.S. Senate, the companies voiced their support of the legislation, highlighting how it will benefit consumers, spur innovation, and boost economic growth.
“We write to express our support for S. 2992, the American Innovation and Choice Online Act. Passage of this legislation would mark a signature achievement in the essential enterprise of restoring fair competition and enhancing innovation in our digital marketplaces. The Act will benefit a broad range of the small and medium sized businesses that form the backbone of our economy, and the result will be better consumer experiences, greater investment in the creation of new businesses, and more sustainable and robust economic growth,” the companies wrote.
From the letter:
- “S. 2992 is a moderate and sensible bill aimed squarely at well-documented abuses by the very largest online platforms to use their respective monopolistic dominance to suppress fair competition.”
- The legislation “outlaws conduct which the online behemoths wield to further entrench and expand their overwhelming market power while creating sensible carve-outs to safeguard privacy, national security, and other important interests.”
- The bill “unlocks innovation, benefits consumers, and, scare tactics notwithstanding, does not diminish the vibrancy of the companies to which the laws are applied.”
- The legislation will help “create a more competitive landscape that will help unleash the creative power of not merely a few giant companies, but thousands of smaller companies who will otherwise never see the light of day or will find their horizons severely diminished.”
- The legislation will “safeguard the right for independent businesses to compete and serve the needs of their communities.”
This support builds on growing momentum for the American Innovation and Choice Online Act. The legislation has been endorsed by the Center for American Progress, Consumer Reports, leading national security experts, and small business organizations such as Main Street Alliance, Small Business Rising, The National Association of Wholesale Distributors, and the American Hotel and Lodging Association.
Last week, CNBC reported that small business sellers on Amazon are expressing their support for the American Innovation and Choice Online Act, revolting against Amazon’s misleading claims about the legislation.
Last month, Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo expressed her backing of the legislation. In April, the Department of Justice voiced its strong endorsement of the legislation, encouraging Congress “to work to finalize this legislation and pass it into law.”
Recently, the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, Service Employees International Union, and the Strategic Organizing Center sent a letter to Congressional leaders urging the legislation’s passage. The labor organizations wrote that the legislation “can and will help turn the tide in favor of working people, so they may share in the prosperity they help create every day…and help prevent these digital behemoths from…stifling the equality and fairness in the economy that workers so urgently need and deserve.” Additionally, a coalition of 58 non-profit and public policy organizations also wrote a letter endorsing the bill.
The Washington Post Editorial Board and Boston Globe Editorial Board have also expressed their support for the legislation.
In January, the bill passed the Senate Judiciary Committee by a bipartisan vote of 16-6, making it the first major bill on technology competition to advance to the Senate floor since the dawn of the Internet.
In December, coalition of 35 small and medium tech companies including Yelp, Sonos, Patreon, Y Combinator, and DuckDuckGo urged the legislation’s passage, citing the need to “help restore competition in the digital marketplace and remove barriers for consumers to choose the services they want.”
In October, Klobuchar and Grassley introduced the American Innovation and Choice Online Act to set commonsense rules of the road for major digital platforms to ensure they cannot unfairly preference their own products and services. Representatives David Cicilline (D-RI) and Ken Buck (R-CO) lead companion legislation in the House, which passed the House Judiciary Committee by a bipartisan vote of 24-20 last June.
The Senate legislation is cosponsored by Senators Dick Durbin (D-IL), Lindsey Graham (R-SC), Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), John Kennedy (R-LA), Cory Booker (D-NJ), Cynthia Lummis (R-WY), Mazie Hirono (D-HI), Mark Warner (D-VA), Josh Hawley (R-MO), Steve Daines (R-MT), and Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI).
The letter was signed by Alliance for Pharmacy Compounding; American Booksellers Association; American Independent Business Alliance; American Specialty Toy Retailing Association; Andi Search; Atomized; Basecamp; Beeper; Brave; CaditApp, Inc; Cambridge Local First; Cohere; Disconnect; Dots; DuckDuckGo; Efani Secure Mobile; Fathom Analytics; Felt; fuboTV, Inc.; Genius; Hostbuddy; Hotplate; Hype Machine; Independent Office Products and Furniture Dealers Association; In Stock; Initialized Capital; Institute for Local Self-Reliance; Jelly Public Benefit Corporation; Jouncer; Kelkoo Group; Latchel; Local First Arizona; Local First La Plata; Lowcountry Local First; Main Street Alliance; Malloc; Milk Video Inc; Mini Exhibitions; Mio; Miso; National Sporting Goods Association; Neeva; North American Hardware and Paint Association; Patreon; Podium ; Proton AG; Quora; Ready; Rex; Shop Local Raleigh/Greater Raleigh Merchants Association; Small Business Rising; Sonos; Sparktoro; Spokane Independent Metro Business Alliance; Spotify; StayLocal, an initiative of Urban Conservancy; Telematica.so; The Travel Technology Association; The Tor Project; Tutanota; Wyndly; Wyze; Y Combinator; Yelp; and You.com
The full text of the letter is available HERE and below.
To the Members of the United States Senate:
We write to express our support for S. 2992, the American Innovation and Choice Online Act. Passage of this legislation would mark a signature achievement in the essential enterprise of restoring fair competition and enhancing innovation in our digital marketplaces. The Act will benefit a broad range of the small and medium sized businesses that form the backbone of our economy, and the result will be better consumer experiences, greater investment in the creation of new businesses, and more sustainable and robust economic growth.
S. 2992 is a moderate and sensible bill aimed squarely at well-documented abuses by the very largest online platforms to use their respective monopolistic dominance to suppress fair competition. Gaining access to the dominant platforms and integrating with their services has increasingly become a take-it-or-leave-it process replete with anti-competitive demands. It doesn't serve American consumers or small and medium sized businesses when the tech behemoths use their platform dominance to tilt the competitive scales in favor of their own products and services, or condition use of their core products on the use of other products. Nor does it serve when Big Tech restricts interoperability to protect and extend their own dominant positions, or when they use what they've learned about your business to produce remarkably similar products to compete with you.
The bipartisan bill, S. 2992, addresses each of these ills in a balanced fashion, outlawing conduct which the online behemoths wield to further entrench and expand their overwhelming market power while creating sensible carve-outs to safeguard privacy, national security, and other important interests. In the face of these common sense measures, Big Tech companies falsely declare that the sky will fall; that's what entrenched incumbents always do. But history teaches us that having and enforcing sound antitrust laws unlocks innovation, benefits consumers, and, scare tactics notwithstanding, does not diminish the vibrancy of the companies to which the laws are applied. It is time to extend that history to address the unique challenges of the 21st Century. And S. 2992 does that.
America's advantage in technological innovation is one of its greatest assets. And one important way to preserve that advantage is to modernize our antitrust laws to create a more competitive landscape that will help unleash the creative power of not merely a few giant companies, but thousands of smaller companies who will otherwise never see the light of day or will find their horizons severely diminished. Small businesses strengthen America's economic dynamism and support the vitality of our local communities. Now is the moment for Congress to advance legislation that will safeguard the right for independent businesses to compete and serve the needs of their communities.
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