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The ACCESS Act
The most significant interop legislation in US history.
Five Big Tech antitrust bills were introduced in the House Judiciary Committee today; they’re the most significant antitrust effort in more than half a century, and they cover a lot of ground.
There’s a bill to ban “self-preferencing” (when a company-run marketplace pushes its inferior products over its rivals’ superior ones); another to block anticompetitive acquisitions; a bill to block “walled garden”; and a bill to fund the FTC to police all this stuff.
But I’m most excited about is the ACCESS Act, a bill to force interoperability on the biggest tech platforms, the kinds of services people use because they have to, because their friends or communities or customers (or media) are locked into them.
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2021/06/access-act-takes-step-towards-more-interoperable-future
Under the ACCESS Act, very large companies will be required to offer an API that allows users to take their data to a rival service, and let them continue to talk to the people they left behind when they quit Big Tech.
