In the Media
COURTHOUSE NEWS: California senator seeks law to fight Big Tech’s market domination
03. 19. 2026
The Blocking Anticompetitive Self-preferencing by Entrenched Dominant platforms (BASED) Act would impose restrictions on large platforms
Click to add an image!
SAN FRANCISCO (CN) — Imagine the internet is a toll road everyone must use.
Then, one day, the toll road decides to start its own trucking company.
That’s what massive online platforms like Google and Apple are doing, said Teri Olle, with Economic Security California Action.
“They get the green lights while you get the red lights,” she said at a Wednesday press conference, adding: “No one would think this is fair. No one would think this is good.”
Olle and others support Senate Bill 1074, called the Blocking Anticompetitive Self-preferencing by Entrenched Dominant platforms (BASED) Act.
Written by San Francisco Democratic state Senator Scott Wiener, the bill would impose anticompetitive rules on internet giants. Wiener said they would face prohibitions from blocking competing app stores. They’d also be forbidden from manipulating search results that send people to their own products.
Those affected by the bill would include digital platforms with a market capitalization over $1 trillion and that serve at least 100 million monthly users in the United States.
Wiener said these anticompetitive practices hurt a user’s experience, fuel misinformation and stifle innovation. Promoting their own products while sidelining competitors is called self-preferencing — a move that’s led to higher prices, less service and fewer options for people.
“This is incredibly important, this issue, right now,” he said. “We must have a level playing field for people to compete on.”
The language of the bill wasn’t immediately available. Google and Apple couldn’t immediately be reached for comment.
A handful of entrepreneurs spoke in favor of the legislation. Shane Gill, co-founder of AltStore, said the Apple Store refused an emulator they’d made some 10 years ago. They later founded AltStore, which allows people to self-publish their own apps.
Gill credited European Union law for enabling his start-up to exist.
“SB 1074 is that law for California,” he added. “When California moves, the country follows.”
A founder of Blue, Peter Krogh said he left Google because he wanted to build an app that would enable someone to talk to their cellphone. It’s more than speaking a text. Instead, it lets people book appointments and pay rent. In effect, people can use the apps on their phone without touching it.
However, it currently requires a dongle that must be plugged into a phone, as opposed to merely being an app. That’s because Apple made it impossible to use their phones with it, Krogh said.
Hundreds of start-ups have their genesis in Y Combinator, a San Francisco-based incubator. Garry Tan, its president and CEO, said that 20 years ago anyone could build a website and open it to the world.
“The web was open,” he added. “Anyone could build. Anyone could reach anyone.”
That’s since changed, Tan said. Now people trying to release their product hit a wall, the Apple app store, which he called the worst DMV in the world.
On a personal computer, people have the freedom to install the programs they want. On a cellphone, that decision is made for them, he added.
“We’re not against Big Tech, but we are for Little Tech,” Tan said, adding: “The people controlling access are the same people who benefit from restricting it.”
Olle said she wanted to build an economy that allows people to thrive. Instead, they’re living in one where large online platforms set the rules for everyone.
Wiener said the legislative battle ahead would be bruising.
“Do I have a read on Governor [Gavin] Newsom on this and the answer is ‘no,’” Wiener said.
While the BASED Act is just launching, another bill died in committee Wednesday morning.
Senate Bill 1035 — written by state Senator Tony Strickland, a Huntington Beach Republican — would have hit pause on the state’s cap-and-trade program, low-carbon fuel standard and gas tax for a year. The senator estimated it would have dropped gas prices by $1.08 a gallon.
The bill failed to pass out of the Senate Environmental Quality Committee.
Strickland told Courthouse News that he’ll seek to amend the upcoming fiscal year 2026-27 budget with language from his bill.
“There’s more than one way to get this,” he said.