Sounding off: California's latest effort to rein in how major technology platforms rank and promote their own services died in the Senate after just a month, highlighting how quickly political support can shift when Big Tech's business models are at stake. The proposal, known as the BASED Act, targeted a practice central to today's platform economy: self-preferencing. At issue was whether companies such as Apple and Google should be allowed to prioritize their own products within tightly controlled ecosystems like app stores and search interfaces.
The bill, introduced by State Senator Scott Wiener, aimed to curb that conduct and drew on ideas similar to those driving Europe's recent digital competition rules.
Instead, the measure died in a key privacy committee after an intense, coordinated push by major technology firms and allied trade groups. "They absolutely flooded the Capitol with lobbyists to trash the bill and at times to spread misinformation," Wiener told Bloomberg. "It was a tidal wave lobbying effort, and we were at a real disadvantage."
The response began almost immediately. Within minutes of Wiener introducing the bill on March 18, the Chamber of Progress – a trade group backed by companies including Google, Amazon, and Apple – issued a public statement opposing it. From there, the campaign expanded across multiple fronts, combining direct lobbying, advertising, and grassroots-style pressure.
Opponents framed the legislation as a direct threat to product performance and user experience. Messaging circulated to lawmakers and the public warned that the bill could make search results "less useful," deliveries "slower," and phones "less secure." Their argument blended politics with engineering, claiming that forcing separation between different layers of a platform could reduce service integration, degrade performance, and disrupt systems built as tightly integrated stacks.
Supporters of the bill, including Y Combinator and a coalition of smaller technology firms, pushed back, arguing that those claims overstated the technical risks and obscured underlying competitive concerns. They said self-preferencing allows dominant platforms to bury competitors in search rankings and app stores and steer users toward their own services by controlling placement and access to key features.
The conflict mirrors ongoing battles in Europe, where regulators have imposed strict limits on similar practices through frameworks such as the Digital Markets Act. Those rules have already resulted in more than $7 billion in fines against large technology companies over the past two years, and industry groups estimate that compliance could cost tens of billions annually.
"The companies are very concerned that these regulations do not come to the United States," said Joseph Coniglio, an antitrust researcher with the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation. "It risks fundamentally changing the way that they do business in the digital economy."
That risk helps explain the unusually unified front among major tech firms. Five separate trade organizations opposed the BASED Act, despite recent fragmentation within the sector on other policy issues. Companies also intervened directly, an uncommon move for a state-level bill at such an early stage.
Google's president of global affairs, Kent Walker, called the proposal "even worse" than comparable European regulations. Apple echoed that concern. In a letter to lawmakers, the company's senior director of government affairs, Tim Powderly, warned it could "have the effect of forcing companies to spend significant time and resources complying with regulations instead of building new products."
Airline industry representatives were enlisted to argue that changes to Google's search mechanics could reduce traffic to travel websites. A small business owner who testified against the bill, Jerick Sobie, said he was encouraged to participate by the Connected Commerce Council, a group funded by Amazon and Google. The organization reimbursed his expenses, which Sobie described as a "necessary evil," given the limited resources available to small businesses.
Lawmakers ultimately rejected the bill, balancing regulatory concerns with the economic weight of the technology sector in California. State Senator Christopher Cabaldon, who leads the privacy committee that blocked the measure, pointed to the industry's central role in the state economy. "A lot of people work there, a lot of tax revenue, communities that are founded on it," he said. "So our charge is to protect privacy and consumers and also to account for – like Hollywood or the wine industry in my district – technology as a fundamental California industry."
Following the vote, industry groups signaled that the fight is not over. In an internal message, a California Chamber of Commerce official called the outcome a "true team effort" and urged allies to "remain vigilant," noting that Wiener could attempt to revive the proposal.
Wiener has not ruled that out. Asked whether he would pursue another path for the legislation, he responded: "Stay tuned."
Big Tech killed California's anti-self-preferencing bill in a month
