As if you needed more reasons to be frustrated with Congress, last week, a handful of senators introduced the 2026 version of a lousy bill called the American Innovation and Choice Online Act (AICOA). It’s a complicated piece of antitrust legislation that seeks to emulate Europe by aggressively regulating online platforms and marketplaces. Needless to say, we should know better than to embrace European-style regulation in this country.
Several years ago, my former NTU colleague Will Yepez wrote an excellent blog post illustrating how AICOA could hinder your ability to carry out routine tasks like finding a new place to grab lunch, ordering a new coffee mug, or trying to locate your lost iPhone.
Unfortunately, this bad bill is like a zombie that simply won’t die despite NTU and other free market groups like the Competitiveness Coalition revealing time and time again how disastrous it would be for taxpayers and consumers.
Just recently, NTU signed a coalition letter alongside more than 30 groups urging Congress to once again reject this misguided bill.
Congress has real problems to tackle these days—improving affordability, reducing the deficit, and reforming unstable entitlement programs, just to name a few. Hopefully, this attempt to impose onerous, European-style regulations on online platforms ends up in the trash can where it belongs.