In the wake of ongoing reviews of California’s state antitrust laws, new proposals aimed at fostering fairer competition have sparked significant backlash. Small business owners across the state are voicing concerns that these changes could inadvertently harm their operations by disrupting the digital tools they use. These proposals would undermine tried and true antitrust principles that foster competition, by exacerbating market concentration and stifle opportunities for smaller enterprises.

Small business owners and experts alike express mounting concerns that these proposals will make concentration worse, not better, stifling opportunities to compete across California.

– “The potential proposal is part of a review of state antitrust laws and meant to strike a blow against the biggest technology companies, such as Google and Meta. However, small local businesses like mine could take the hardest hit. Here’s why: Connection, convenience and consumer information,” writes Sacramento small business owner Angela Harris. “To succeed, small businesses have to attract customers, quickly give them helpful information, and make it easy for them to locate a brick-and-mortar store or website. Digital platforms like Amazon, Instagram and Google provide a number of tools and services like affordable advertising, customer reviews and ratings that help small businesses grow. They are often free. The proposed recommendations could totally upend the way those tools and services work. They would prohibit “self-preferencing,” which can occur when big digital platforms favor their own products and services over those from other comparable services. What does that mean for me? Right now, if you search for my business online, our Google business profile will immediately pop up, allowing you to click on a map to find our location, read reviews of our business, check our hours, click a button to visit our website, or call to talk to an expert. The law revision commission suggests breaking all that information apart and forcing Google to show other companies’ maps, reviews and compilations of our business information.”

– “While we support antitrust enforcement to protect robust competition, we’re concerned this particular thought experiment would, if adopted, produce real-world harm for consumers and businesses in California,” writes a coalition of California-based competition advocates in a letter to Governor Gavin Newsom. The Los Angeles County Business Federation, Silicon Valley Leadership Group, Bay Area Council, San Mateo County Economic Development Association, Torrance Chamber of Commerce, Santa Clarita Valley Chamber of Commerce Employers Group, La Cañada Flintridge Chamber of Commerce, and Community Association Chamber San Mateo County detailed to the Governor, “The California Law Revision Commission is now studying potential changes to California antitrust law. We support sensible reforms, such as enacting a California ban on monopolization like the one already found in the federal Sherman Act and in the laws of numerous sister states. However, another proposal would replace our current tried-and-true California antitrust laws with an academic wish-list of changes that have never been attempted before in the real world. We fear these changes would harm California businesses, consumers, and workers alike, increasing costs, reducing quality, and discouraging Innovation. California consumers and businesses deserve better. We urge you and the rest of our elected leaders to consider sensible, well-grounded reforms that would deliver real benefits to Californians.”

Read more from our Antitrust series here, here, and here.