Reintroduced American Innovation and Choice Online Act would harm consumers and small businesses

In response to the reintroduction of the American Innovation and Choice Online Act (AICOA), which was just brought forward tonight, R Street resident fellow Josh Withrow released the following statement:

“AICOA is a copy of some of Europe’s most regressive regulations aimed at America’s leading tech platforms, and it’s unfortunate to see it resurrected in Congress. The common business practices that AICOA condemns as anticompetitive are actually the sort of product integrations that make search engines, online shopping, and all our mobile devices better and more convenient. The disruption this law would cause to some of the most popular tech products Americans use every day would harm not only individual U.S. consumers but also the entire ecosystem of smaller businesses that depend on these large, integrated platforms to operate. 

We’ve already seen how similar regulations have worked in the European Union under their Digital Markets Act, with multiple companies forced to delay the rollout of new AI tools to European markets. AICOA would harm U.S. tech competitiveness and innovation and should be left in the dustbin as it has been for the last five years.”