AICOA Rises From the Grave, Still Looking for a Theory of Harm

AICOA would replace successful American competition policy with rigid rules that have failed in Europe

The American Innovation and Choice Online Act (AICOA) would single out the largest digital platforms and prohibit certain practices related to platform design and management. Prohibited conduct includes favoring a platform’s own results in searches, conditioning platform access on the use of certain services, and using certain platform data to inform future decisions. The bill is similar to Europe’s Digital Markets Act (2022) and would herald a …

AICOA Rises from the Grave, Still Looking for a Theory of Harm

AICOA is back from the dead, and this time it has learned a few new tricks—mostly how to lower liability thresholds, raise defense burdens, and keep treating “Big Tech” as if capitalization were a theory of harm. The American Innovation and Choice Online Act has failed twice before. Its latest incarnation is not so much a fresh start as a sequel nobody ordered.  Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) “introduced” AICOA las…