The improbable rise of our modern tech giants once epitomized the endless possibility of Silicon Valley. But the reality today is a far cry from that idealism.
Those former-upstarts have exploited their dominance to unfairly entrench their monopoly power and crush potential rivals. Far from embodying national interests, these monopolistic abuses serve to chill innovation and deprive the next generation of American entrepreneurs of opportunity.
We need new safeguards to level the playing field and prevent egregious abuses like the ones below:
- The American Innovation and Choice Online Act (S. 2992 / H.R. 3816) 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 products or kneecapping competitors to pad their profits, this bill would level the playing field and put real choice in the hands of consumers.
- The Open App Markets Act (S. 2710 / H.R. 7030) will set fair, clear, and enforceable rules to protect competition and strengthen consumer protections within the app market. Google and Apple have gatekeeper control of the dominant mobile operating systems and their app stores that allow them to exclusively dictate the terms of the app market, inhibiting competition and restricting consumer choice.
Unchecked monopoly power has allowed Big Tech to harm users, kneecap nascent rivals, and rig marketplaces without consequence. The bipartisan bills would finally curtail these gatekeepers’ most egregious abuses – like unfairly boosting their own products and extracting monopoly rents across the digital economy – and force them to start competing on the merits again.
