Senate Judiciary Committee Should Postpone Markup of Klobuchar-Grassley Antitrust Bill and Consider Its Numerous Unintended Consequences, Says ITIF

WASHINGTON-Ahead of the Senate Judiciary Committee debating this Thursday the American Innovation and Choice Online Act, introduced by Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) and Chuck Grassley (R-IA), the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF), the leading think tank for science and technology policy, issued the following statement from Aurelien Portuese, ITIF's director of the Schumpeter Project on Competition Policy:

Lawmakers should postpone marking up the American Innovation and Choice Online Act and reflect on its numerous unintended consequences.

The Klobuchar-Grassley bill proposes size, not conduct, as the main criteria to assess anti-competitive practices. The bill also ignores the consumer welfare standard as a principle of antitrust analysis.

In addition, this bill creates unfair competition and harms consumers by limiting online platforms' capacity to innovate and, as a consequence, offer consumers better and more price-competitive products.

The Senate Judiciary Committee should try and fix these and other problems associated with the bill before approving it.

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