Tech Oversight California celebrated the COMPETE Act (AB 1776) being signed into law today, capping a session-long fight to modernize California’s antitrust law.
“Today is a victory for Californians over Big Tech. Families are getting squeezed everywhere they turn: at the grocery store, at the pharmacy counter, on platforms they can’t opt out of. Big Tech CEOs have spent years making sure there’s nowhere else to go. Now California can hold them accountable when they rig the market and rip people off. Thanks to Majority Leader Aguiar-Curry for her leadership and to Governor Newsom for his signature to help California tackle the affordability crisis,” said Sacha Haworth, Executive Director of Tech Oversight California.
The COMPETE Act (Assembly Bill 1776), authored by Assembly Majority Leader Cecilia Aguiar-Curry, updates the Cartwright Act, California’s antitrust law, written in 1907, so that it reaches anticompetitive conduct by a single dominant company. Recent polling Tech Oversight conducted with Hart Research found that Californians support the COMPETE Act by more than two to one, 68% to 32%.
Corporate giants including Big Tech launched an all-out lobbying war this session to fight the COMPETE Act’s threat to their entrenched dominance, and the California Chamber of Commerce named the COMPETE Act its number one kill target for the year, announcing a seven-figure advertising blitz to oppose AB 1776 on top of more than $6 million industry groups spent lobbying against the bill. But workers, community advocates, and consumer protection champions teamed up to expose that campaign, lower costs for California families, and restack the deck for workers and families instead of tech CEOs.
Tech Oversight California is a Sacramento-based advocacy group dedicated to reinforcing the ongoing fight to build a better internet in California and beyond by holding Big Tech platforms accountable and moving the state forward as a national and global role model for strong tech regulation.