The Open App Markets Act
The U.S. Senate is considering legislation—S. 2710, the Open App Markets Act—that would, among other restrictions, bar app stores from requiring app developers to use the store’s own in-app payment system.
The U.S. Senate is considering legislation—S. 2710, the Open App Markets Act—that would, among other restrictions, bar app stores from requiring app developers to use the store’s own in-app payment system.
Since taking office, the Biden administration has moved aggressively to use enforcement actions and rulemakings—many of them outlined in the administration’s July 2021 executive order—ostensibly as a means to promote market competition.
The liability protections granted to intermediaries under Section 230(c)(1) of the Communications Decency Act of 1996 can and should be conditioned on platforms taking reasonable steps to curb harmful conduct.
Policymakers in the United States, the United Kingdom, and the European Union recently have pursued legislative and regulatory changes to make it more difficult for large companies, especially digital platforms, to acquire other firms.
Data is one of the pillars of the modern digital economy, but its value is contingent on its ability to flow around the globe in real time, permitting individuals and firms to develop new and novel insights and to operate at higher levels of efficiency and safety.
Legal history offers examples of areas where attempting to apply liability directly to bad actors is likely to be ineffective, but where certain related parties might be able to either control the bad actors or mitigate the damage they cause.
The Communications Decency Act of 1996’s Section 230 holds that the law will not treat online service providers as speakers or publishers of third-party content, and that actions the providers take to moderate content hosted by their services will not trigger liability.
Four months after a similar antitrust measure was advanced to the floor of the U.S. House, a bipartisan group of senators, led by Sens. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) and Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), announced that they will introduce legislation designed to drastically reduce the ability of digital platforms to favor their own goods and services.
All around the world, policymakers are proposing legislative changes that would drastically alter the ways that online platforms can operate.