On Monday, Chamber of Progress released a new national voter survey gauging American attitudes towards tech antitrust legislation under consideration in Congress. As bill proponents mobilize today in favor of the legislation, the organization also sent petitions to Congress signed by more than 79,000 voters opposed to pending antitrust bills.

The survey released today, conducted by the firm Normington Petts, polled 1,200 registered voters from February 24 through March 6, 2022. The survey results found that tech antitrust legislation does not rank as a priority for American voters, and that voters are concerned the legislation would cause more harm than help.

Full Poll Results Here

Key polling results include:

• Democrats and Independents do not prioritize tech as a public policy issue, but when they are asked about regulatory priorities for tech, their focus is on data privacy and security – not competition and antitrust.
• Most voters (89%) have some concern about big tech companies, but only 24% want aggressive government intervention. Most voters have concerns but value either the convenience (37%) or the economic possibilities (28%) that stem from tech.
• A majority of voters (52%) believe that new laws to increase competition against big tech would not help consumers like them. A majority (58%) also believe that the news laws could end up hurting consumers like them.
• After hearing arguments for and against app store legislation, 43% of voters opposed the legislation and 36% supported it.

“Even before today’s lobbying bonanza began, tens of thousands of voters had already told Congress not to break the tech services they rely on,” said Chamber of Progress CEO Adam Kovacevich. “As lawmakers debate passing tech legislation that breaks popular consumer products, they need to consider how the average American voter will be impacted by legislation that messes with Amazon Prime and Google search results.”

The petitions delivered to congressional offices today were signed online by 79,000 voters from June 2021 through March 2022.  The petitions urge Congress to oppose tech antitrust legislation that would disrupt consumers’ use of tech products and services, degrade their privacy, and prevent online platforms from taking action on hate speech and misinformation.

During recent hearings on pending antitrust legislation (S. 2992) in the Senate, Democratic members raised concerns about the bill, including how it would impact consumers, impediments to moderating hate speech and misinformation on online platforms, national security concerns, and privacy issues. A round up of Democratic concerns raised during the Senate markup is available here.

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Chamber of Progress (progresschamber.org) is a new center-left tech industry policy coalition promoting technology’s progressive future.  We work to ensure that all Americans benefit from technological leaps, and that the tech industry operates responsibly and fairly.  

Our corporate partners do not have a vote on or veto over our positions. We do not speak for individual partner companies and remain true to our stated principles even when our partners disagree.