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New Antitrust Bills Will Hurt Everyday Americans

New radical antitrust legislation will hurt Americans, taking away not just conveniences but tools and services that help us everyday.

Take affordable basics

Consumers will lose the convenience and low prices of affordable options online.

In fact, Americans will lose out on how Amazon Basics sells thousands of products on at a lower cost than name brand alternatives. Take batteries—Amazon Basics sells AAs for roughly 30% less than other leading brands.

House Judiciary’s Latest Antitrust Push Could Render Modern Convenience And Americans’ Online Experiences A Misguided Casualty In Fight Against Big Tech

These bills will cause higher prices, fewer choices, and less innovation for Americans—kneecapping leading American businesses, fossilizing American innovation, and undermining America’s global competitiveness.

If passed into law, Congress’s latest antitrust push will diminish the convenience and value of how Americans use the Internet today.

Learn How House Judiciary’s Antitrust Bills Would Hurt Americans In All Areas Of Our Lives

Here are just a few examples of how the proposed legislation would take away connection, innovation, and opportunity, hurting Americans in the moments that matter

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Americans’ privacy and security online will be at risk

Built-in security protections like Safe Browsing automatically protect 4B+ devices every day, keeping people safe from online threats like deceptive sites or harmful downloads.

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Americans will lose vital tools to tell family and friends they’re safe during a crisis or natural disaster.

The House Judiciary antitrust package would make it harder to communicate in a crisis. We risk losing critical tools like Facebook Safety check that many Americans use during disasters.

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People will not be able to locate a phone or—more importantly—a loved one.

Without apps preloaded on devices, Americans will lose the ability to find lost or stolen devices, and the potential life-saving ability to locate a person in an emergent situation.

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Prime shipping will be banned under new antitrust proposals—ruining a service Americans rely on.

By banning companies from integrating theirs services, the bills would force Americans to settle for less—no more two-day Prime shipping, lockers, or other quick options to choose from.

Problems With the House Judiciary Antitrust Bills:

HR 3826: The Platform Competition and Opportunity Act of 2021
  • Cherry-picks winners and losers by targeting a small handful of businesses discriminatorily
    • Prohibits only certain companies from acquiring new ventures
    • Will only target Tesla, Apple, Microsoft, Google, Amazon and Facebook
      • Also provides the Federal Trade Commission authority to define which platforms are covered
  • Inhibits competition and innovation
    • Investors see fewer opportunities to acquire
    • Businesses unable to make acquisitions will rapidly fossilize
    • Discourages start-ups who look to acquisitions as a way to fund their innovation and entrepreneurship
House Antitrust Bills Will Create Greater Barriers to Competition for Smaller Businesses
HR 3849: The Augmenting Compatibility and Competition by Enabling Service Switching (ACCESS) Act of 2021
  • A major privacy risk for users and websites alike
    • Provides bad actors with a roadmap to circumventing online security protections
  • Opens platforms chosen by the Federal Trade Commission and the Department of Justice up to potentially devastating costs
    • Crony capitalism that lets two agencies pick winners and losers
    • Puts the chosen platforms at a competitive disadvantage
    • Encourages them to abandon pre-existing lines of businesses
New House Bills Would Ban These 15 Tech Conveniences That Consumers Love
HR 3843: The Merger Filing Fee Modernization Act of 2021
  • Provides substantial resources to the FTC
    • Provides resources to progressive activists like Commissioner Slaughter and Chair Khan
  • Further discourages mergers and acquisitions to the detriment of American small businesses
    • Bases filing fees solely on the dollar size of the transaction
    • Fails to account for the complexity of the merger or if this would make mergers too expensive to be feasible
    • Tacked-on mandatory fees will spell disaster for smaller and mid-sized businesses trying to gain a competitive edge
The Latest Antitrust Push Could Render Our Tech Devices Virtually Useless
HR 3816: The American Choice and Innovation Online Act
  • Opens up users’ personal information to bad actors
    • Forces platforms to share our personal information with third parties including foreign software and app developers
  • Will make it even harder to prevent sites from removing unwanted third-party scammers from their marketplaces
    • Opens up consumers and their wallets to even more online fraud and content inappropriate for their users.
  • Forces platforms to host untrustworthy and malicious developers and provide our personal information to them
Examining Recent House Antitrust Reform Proposals
HR 3825: The Ending Platform Monopolies Act
  • Inhibits innovation and competition by strictly limiting how a business practices and competes
    • Takes away affordable and accessible generic brands like Amazon Basics
    • All pre-installed or self-preferenced products would disappear
      • No Windows on Surfaces
      • No Siri on iPhones
      • No Alexa on Echos
  • For small businesses, limited the range of potential purchasers who can acquire the business
    • Companies cannot compete on as many metrics as before
The Latest Antitrust Push Could Render Our Tech Devices Virtually Useless
Conservatives and libertarians across America are rightfully calling these bills out.