Opinion
The ACCESS Act Promises to Benefit Consumers
—
My take on the ACCESS Act is largely positive. Data portability is a mechanism to increase competition, and competition is typically beneficial for consumers.
By Robert Seamans
Today three Senators — Democratic Sens. Mark Warner (Va.) and Richard Blumenthal (Conn.), along with Republican Sen. Josh Hawley (Mo.) — are introducing a bi-partisan bill designed to increase competition between digital platforms. The bill is called the Augmenting Compatibility and Competition by Enabling Service Switching (ACCESS) Act. Axios has the story here. You can read the actual bill here.
A key component of the bill is data portability, a topic that I’ve written about before, including for Forbes and CPI Antitrust Chronicle.
My take on the ACCESS Act is largely positive. Data portability is a mechanism to increase competition, and competition is typically beneficial for consumers. Joshua Gans (University of Toronto) wrote a report for the Brookings Center’s Hamilton Project on the ways in which data portability benefits consumers.
Read the full Forbes article.
___
Robert Seamans is Associate Professor of Management and Organizations
A key component of the bill is data portability, a topic that I’ve written about before, including for Forbes and CPI Antitrust Chronicle.
My take on the ACCESS Act is largely positive. Data portability is a mechanism to increase competition, and competition is typically beneficial for consumers. Joshua Gans (University of Toronto) wrote a report for the Brookings Center’s Hamilton Project on the ways in which data portability benefits consumers.
Read the full Forbes article.
___
Robert Seamans is Associate Professor of Management and Organizations