The AMERICA Act: Lee Introduces Bill to Protect Digital Advertising Competition...

WASHINGTON – Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT), joined by Sens. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), Ted Cruz (R-TX), Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), Marco Rubio (R-FL), Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), Eric Schmitt (R-MO), Josh Hawley (R-MO), Lindsey Graham (R-SC), JD Vance (R-OH), and John Kennedy (R-LA), introduced the Advertising Middlemen Endangering Rigorous Internet Competition Accountability (AMERICA) Act. The bill would restore and protect competition in digital advertising by eliminating conflicts of interest that have allowed the leading platforms in the market to manipulate ad auctions and impose monopoly rents on a broad swath of the American economy.

Of the bill, Sen. Lee said, “Digital advertising is the lifeblood of the internet economy. It supports most of the free content and services Americans have come to rely upon, including essential local journalism, and it allows businesses of every size to reach their customers quickly and efficiently. Unfortunately, online advertising is also suffering under the thumb of trillion-dollar tech companies.

“Companies like Google and Facebook have been able to exploit their unprecedented troves of detailed user data to obtain vice grip-like control over digital advertising, amassing power on every side of the market and using it to block competition and take advantage of their customers. The conflicts of interest are so glaring that one Google employee described Google’s ad business as being like ‘if Goldman or Citibank owned the NYSE.’

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