To a US Senator: support the American Innovation and Choice Online Act and platform antitrust

If you’re a small business that sells through dominant platforms, an app developer affected by App Store policies, or a content creator whose distribution depends on platforms, your perspective is particularly useful. The political conversation often centers on consumer effects; the small-business and creator-side effects are equally substantive but less visible.

Dear Senator [Last Name],

I’m writing as a constituent in [city/town] to ask you to support the American Innovation and Choice Online Act and to defend the structural-remedies trajectory in the major platform antitrust cases now in active proceedings.

US antitrust enforcement against major technology platforms is the most active in a generation. The DOJ’s 2024 victory in the Google search case was the most significant antitrust ruling against a US technology company in decades. The remedies fight will determine whether the substantive ruling produces structural change. Several parallel cases — DOJ v. Google (AdTech), FTC v. Meta, DOJ v. Apple, FTC v. Amazon — are at various stages.

The legislative complement is the American Innovation and Choice Online Act. AICOA prohibits specific anticompetitive practices by dominant platforms — self-preferencing, anti-steering, certain forms of discrimination — without requiring antitrust litigation in each instance. The Open App Markets Act addresses related concerns specific to app stores.

Two specific advocacy targets:

1. Defend structural remedies. The DOJ has signaled support for structural remedies in the Google search case (Chrome divestiture, Android divestiture, default-payment prohibition). Conduct remedies in tech antitrust have a poor historical track record — the 1990s Microsoft consent decree being the standard reference. Structural remedies are more enforceable and more likely to produce durable competitive change. Letters supporting structural rather than conduct remedies push the political environment toward the more durable outcome.

2. Support AICOA reintroduction and floor consideration. The bill has been reintroduced in multiple sessions; Senate procedural posture has been the binding constraint. Constituent pressure on undecided senators is the active lever.

[Personalize: name a specific concern. Examples: “I’m a small business that sells through [Amazon/eBay/etc.] and have experienced [specific platform practice]”; “I’m an app developer affected by [App Store / Play Store policy]”; “I’m a content creator whose distribution depends on [platform] and have seen [specific change]”; “I work in [tech industry] and have direct concern about platform consolidation”.]

The combined enforcement-and-legislative agenda represents the most concerted antitrust push of the post-1980s period. The political coalition for action has been bipartisan in principle but has faced industry pressure that has prevented advancement. The fiscal stakes for affected industries are large; the political pressure is correspondingly intense.

I’m asking you to engage with these reforms on the substantive merits — that concentrated platform power produces measurable harms to small business, innovation, and democratic infrastructure — and to resist the industry framing that competitive enforcement and structural reform threaten innovation.

I’d appreciate knowing your position on AICOA, on the platform antitrust cases now in proceedings, and on related legislation in the current session.

Thank you for your service.

Sincerely,

[Your name] [Your address]