I’d like to informally join the list of technologists who support the American Innovation and Choice Online Act. Here’s the full text of the bill.

Specifically, the bill would prevent “covered platforms” from prioritizing their products and services over those provided by other vendors in a way that would harm competition on that platform.

That could be interpreted to mean app stores and search engines: a “covered platform” is one that has at least 50M US-based monthly active users, at least 100K monthly active “business users”, and has either a market cap or revenues of at least $550B. It also needs to have the potential to “materially impede” access from a business to its users / customers, or to tools a business needs to service its users or customers.

It’s a good law. Neither search engine or marketplace vendors should have the ability to preference services made by that vendor over equivalent services made by others. Apple shouldn’t be able to promote Apple’s services over a startup’s on the App Store; Google shouldn’t be able to promote Google’s services on its store or in its search engine results. The result will be a better ecosystem for startups, independent projects, and software produced by co-operatives and collectives.

Similarly, the Open App Markets Act would prevent App Store providers from forcing app vendors to use the provider’s payments technology. Apple wouldn’t be able to require that subscriptions go through iTunes, for example. That’s a big change that, again, creates better terms for startups and helps to establish a more competitive ecosystem.

This is the kind of thing legislation should be doing: helping to enforce fairer markets that allow newcomers to compete with incumbents on a level playing field. I’m hopeful that these bills pass, and that they’re a precursor to real antitrust reform. In the light of today’s announcement around an overhauled merger approval process, we may be in luck.

A more competitive landscape is one where consumers have more choices and protections, and ecosystems are more open and innovative. These active steps to get there represent a change that’s been a long time coming.