In a recent hearing of the Senate Judiciary Committee, legal expert Professor Daniel Francis of NYU Law School submitted written testimony and verbally testified against the American Innovation and Choice Online Act (AICOA) and the Open App Markets Act (OAMA). Francis said that AICOA and OAMA would harm consumers and introduce security vulnerabilities to digital platforms, concluding the two bills “would do more harm than good.”

Here’s a synopsis of his powerful testimony:

AICOA Would Harm Consumers And Introduce Vulnerabilities To Digital Platforms

Francis explains that AICOA “will result in more bad actors and more bad products.”

— “I do not think there is much room to doubt that AICOA will result in more bad actors and more bad products—ranging from the malicious and sinister to the merely buggy and spammy—getting access to platforms, data, consumers, devices, and ecosystems. As the Internet of Things expands and more devices go online, this means more bad actors getting easier access to consumers’ lives and homes.”

According to Francis, AICOA also “presents a sharp challenge to two business models that are associated with real consumer benefits.”

— “As I read it, AICOA also presents a sharp challenge to two business models that are associated with real consumer benefit. First, it threatens the operation of free-to-use, ad-supported businesses, where the provision of free services is made possible by preferencing the platform owner’s own advertising, or a service that carries it. Deterring businesses from using that model—and driving them toward fee-paying models—does not seem likely to benefit consumers overall. Second, it also threatens closed or partly closed systems which offer users and businesses a secure, seamless option. But cybersecurity experts overwhelmingly emphasize the safety benefits of closed systems, and of platform-owners’ power to restrict and deny access to third party code.”

Francis also highlights that the ambiguity of AICOA’s “harm to competition” standard “seems highly undesirable.”

— “As others have pointed out, AICOA doesn’t explain whether this ‘harm to competition’ test is supposed to be a consumer welfare test, an injury-to-rivals test, or something else, nor even whether it is intended to be construed consistently with antitrust jurisprudence. ‘Competition’ does not, alas, have a single obvious meaning. Strategic ambiguity on this point in legislation of this scale and novelty seems highly undesirable.”

OAMA Would Compromise Security And Thwart Actions That Benefit Consumers

Francis warns that OAMA “would be a terrible cybersecurity mistake” that “would compromise security and quality in ways that would expose consumers and others to serious harms and dangers.”

— “I fear that forcing covered companies to host third-party app stores and in-app payment systems would compromise security and quality in ways that would expose consumers and others to serious harms and dangers. Cybersecurity experts overwhelmingly emphasize the dangers of third party app stores and of malicious apps.”

— Francis adds: “It is clear that official app stores, empowered with the ability and incentive to guard against hostile code and bad actors of all kinds, are the best hope of defending consumers from a proliferating array of threats. I think it would be a terrible cybersecurity mistake to breach these defenses and give third party app stores, and third party apps, a new weapon to force their way into digital ecosystems.”

Francis further explains that OAMA’s rule forcing platforms to host third-party in-app payment systems (IAPs) “puts consumers at risk by exposing their financial information.”

— “Forcing app stores to allow third-party payment systems—or preventing or deterring them from imposing restrictions—puts consumers at risk by exposing their financial information to third parties on their platform. An app may knowingly or unknowingly choose to use an IAP that is low-quality, insecure, vulnerable to hostile or malicious actors, or simply run by those with little incentive or ability to serve consumers’ interests, making it difficult for consumers to contest charges and obtain refunds.”

Francis also points out that OAMA would prevent platforms from “responding accordingly to meet [consumer] demand.”

— “This would prohibit an app store owner from using information that consumers are, for example, interested in video-sharing apps, or that they are searching for games with a dog theme, or that they tend to be drawn to apps with a yellow icon, and responding accordingly to meet demand. It would also prevent app stores from buying—and developers from selling—valuable data that could best be commercialized by the app store owner.”

Learn more about the issues AICOA and OAMA pose to consumers here, here, and here.