The following statement is attributed to Gary Shapiro, president and CEO, Consumer Technology Association (CTA) ®, regarding tomorrow’s Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, “Antitrust Applied: Examining Competition in App Stores.”
“We welcome this hearing on the state of competition in the application economy. As policymakers consider design or performance mandates on America’s leading technology companies, CTA urges caution. New legal requirements for app store providers and consumers could have major unintended consequences affecting national competitiveness, privacy and security, entrepreneurs and even the retirement accounts of millions of Americans as the companies potentially hurt by the proposed policies are owned by millions of Americans.
“Some examples to consider: Removing the benefits which developers – many of whom are small or startups – get from existing app store arrangements will create new burdensome costs. And ‘sideloading’ requirements – as some state laws propose – can compromise consumer privacy and security. Measures like these can set a harmful precedent for other countries to follow–undermining U.S. tech leadership, while further adding insecurity to the user payment process.
“American innovators and consumers are seeing the fruits of the competition in our existing phenomenally successful app economy – more than 20 mobile app stores are on the market today, facilitating a $1.7 trillion ecosystem led almost entirely by U.S. companies. We urge Congress to avoid adopting policies that pick winners and losers in the app market and look forward to our continued work together to cultivate our vibrant tech economy.”
