Small Business Support of Regulation

• Hundreds of thousands of independent and small businesses have joined together to back antitrust and enforcement.
  • Apr. 2021: Small Business Rising (SBR), a coalition of 150,000 small & independent businesses across the country, launched to urge congress pass stricter antitrust laws.
  • Oct. 2021: Main Street Against Big Tech (MSABT) launched to debunk big tech’s cynical PR efforts and show how small business owners were at the mercy of dominant corporations.
    • Tech Crunch report that “counter” to big tech’s “warm and fuzzy anecdotes, “some business owners struggle with relying so heavily on massive, opaque corporations.
    • Accountable Tech ED: “Now small business owners are fighting back by sharing their lived experience to expose the real relationship between big tech and main street.”
  • Oct. 2021: Main Street Competition Coalition (MSCC), a group of independent businesses and farmers, launched to urge FTC to enforce antitrust laws on dominant firms.
    • MSCC was a coalition of independent grocers, pharmacies, restaurants, convenience stores, and farmers, highlighting the broad impact that consolidation and beyond big tech.
      • MSCC highlighted that independent grocers were being forced out of business by the leverage exerted by dominant retailers.
      • MSCC highlighted that independent and organic farmers were losing access to retailers due to market consolidation.
      • MSCC highlighted that large benefit manages were squeezing small competitors and independent pharmacies
• Small and independent business across the country strongly supported Congressional action to pass antitrust legislation to rein in big tech:
  • Small and independent businesses have urged the FTC to take aggressive action against dominant companies that were hurting their businesses.
    • Small Business Owner: “I am very frustrated by Google’s new behavior, as it is directly affecting the success of the brand I have worked so hard to build over the years. They have no right to do this. [...] “This situation is devastating to restaurant owners like me, and I have enough on my plate as it is.”
    • Small Business Owner: “It throws our entire system off when the wrong information is presented on line to the customer [...] I should be able to control my company's information”
    • Small Business Owner: “I lose deliveries when people don't order through me. they are taking away my business.”
    • Small Business Owner: “Their own reviews in the name of higher profits and at the expense of the restaurants themselves. Google has definitely stepped over the line.”
    • Small Business Owner: “Google is allowing third-party delivery services to buy ads and place them within a restaurant's knowledge panel. These ads for third- party delivery services then intercept customers from my business. [...] I should have control over what information is displayed on my Google knowledge panel.”
  • Mar. 2021: SBR urged White house to appoint personnel who would prioritize “anti-monopoly policy.”
    • SBR Letter: “We urge your administration to appoint personnel who are willing to address the concentrated market structures and abuses that are impeding independent businesses and threatening their survival.”
    • The Hill Headline: “Independent Business Groups Push Biden Against FTC, DOJ Appointees With Ties To Big Tech”
  • Apr. 2021: SBR urged congress to confirm Lina Khan to FTC because of her antitrust law expertise.
  • Jun. 2021: SBR backed House legislative package to rein in Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google.
    • Small Business Owner: “By including a rule that the owner of the platform can’t also sell on that platform, this legislation will help thousands of small business owners.”
    • Small Business Owner: “Small business owners need this kind of legislation so that our government has better tools to stand up to monopoly bullies like Amazon.”
  • Jun. 2021: SBR was “thrilled” House Judiciary Committee advanced bipartisan package of bills to rein in Amazon, Apple, Google & Facebook.
    • SBR’s “members and partners worked hard to make sure committee members heard from small businesses.”
  • Jul. 2021: SBR applauded White House executive order to promote competition to support small & independent businesses
    • SBR: “This executive order will help to reduce market concentration, stop monopoly abuses, expand opportunities for small businesses, and strengthen local economies.”
  • Sep. 2021: SBR signed on to letter from nearly sixty public interest groups urging full House passage of legislative package to rein in big tech through new antitrust provisions.
  • Oct. 2021: MSABT report highlighted stories from small business owners across the country being squeezed by big tech.
    • MSABT Report: “The truth is that big tech corporations abuse their gatekeeper status and exploit small businesses to protect their own monopoly profits.”
      • A Salt Lake City, UT small business owner highlighted that he took the time to become a google certified business but then google changed the rules so that certification would require a minimum $10,000/month spend on advertising. Google’s rule changed forced the small business owner to forgo certification he had worked toward because he could not afford new minimum spend rule.
      • Small business owner highlighted that Facebook’s metrics to give a sense of what he is paying for and are falsely presented like his business will always get sales on ad spending.
      • A Plainfield, NJ small business owner criticized Facebook for having and not sharing the information and metrics she needs to optimize how she spends her advertising dollars.
      • A small business owner from Oregon highlighted how big tech companies like Google force small businesses to pay additional fees for advanced features. Google required small business owner to undergo a security audit that could only be conducted by a Google-approved security consultant that would cost $15,000.
      • •A Richmond, VA small business owner highlighted how Facebook required her to get authorization of her ads because they used words like “indigenous rights, women or environment” that got denied by its automated systems.
      • A veteran and small business owner in Vermont highlighted that Amazon uses its dominance to force businesses like him out of the market. Small business owner said he saw a noticeable difference between shipping times on his deliveries and on Amazon’s.
  • Oct. 2021: MSABT video series featured small business owners urging congress to take on big tech & monopolies that were hurting their businesses and consumers.
    • Small Business Owner: There is no transparency in Facebook advertising, “I don’t know if my ad is making an impact.”
    • Small Business Owner: “If only monopolies exist, then you're only going to get the best out of monopoly can be, the consumer loses choice.”
    • Small Business Owner: “Over the last five to six years we have been using Facebook. I just haven't seen any results, actually, from the ads that we run.”
    • Small Business Owner: “I do not think the big tech has small business interests in mind.”
    • Small Business Owner: “When I was trying to place ads on Facebook and Google, I found it to be a clunky, non-transparent process.”
    • Small Business Owner: “We are competing in a world where they make the rules.”
  • Oct. 2021: SBR applauded introduction of bipartisan Klobuchar/Grassley antitrust bill that would make it illegal for Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google to self-preference their products & services.
  • Oct. 2021: MSCC urged FTC to enforce 85-year-old Robinson-Patman Act that had been “designed to protect small and independent businesses from price discrimination.”
    • MSCC: “Unprecedented levels of concentration” mean that “small and medium- sized businesses are increasingly subject to discriminatory terms and conditions.”