TechNet Joins Industry Coalition Urging Congress to Reject AICOA

Washington, D.C. - TechNet, the national, bipartisan network of tech CEOs and senior executives, today joined an industry coalition including the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF) and the Association for Competitive Technology (ACT) - along with nearly 30 additional organizations and individuals - in urging Congress to reject the American Innovation and Choice Online Act (AICOA) . In the joint letter, the coalition warned that the bill would impose unnecessary limitations on America's leading digital platforms' ability to engage in common platform practices - threatening consumers, businesses of all sizes, and U.S. technology leadership.

AICOA would target digital platforms based on revenue and user thresholds without any demonstration of actual market dominance. It places heavy restrictions on widespread product-design and platform-management practices related to security, integration, and maintaining consumer trust. The coalition urged Congress to set AICOA aside and to police digital markets using existing antitrust laws, which already give enforcers ample authority to address concerns about anticompetitive conduct by large technology firms.

The letter , sent to Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley and Ranking Member Dick Durbin, highlights three core concerns with AICOA:

• Targeting firms based on sheer size without requiring any demonstration that they enjoy market dominance, which creates unjustified legal exposure where there is no proven risk of harm to competition;
• Making ordinary and overwhelmingly procompetitive product design, platform management, integration, and security practices legally suspect; and
• Sending a signal that the United States endorses the same kind of digital antitrust policies as the European Union's failed Digital Markets Act (DMA), which the U.S. has sought to push back against globally.

The coalition also warns that AICOA would create significant risks for startups and small businesses that rely on integrated digital services for security, discovery, fraud prevention, payments, and global distribution. By making ordinary platform management newly suspect, the bill would raise costs, increase legal uncertainty, and make it harder for startups and small firms to compete with well established brands.