WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Senator Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) joined CNBC’s Power Lunch to discuss her new legislation with Senators Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) and Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) that would prevent Big Tech giants from forcing their own app stores on users at the expense of innovative startups.

Big Tech Is Not Allowing A Free And Fair Marketplace

“If you take away the anti-competitive behavior that Apple and Google exercise on a lot of these small developers, who would really like to have their apps in an app store, but they're basically prohibited from using third party app stores. Well, first of all, you are slowing down innovation, making it more difficult to innovate… But I also look at this as a huge opportunity cost. And this is why Senator Blumenthal and also Senator Klobuchar have worked together to say, ‘okay, how do we solve this,’ so that we open these avenues of opportunity for more developers who are looking for a way to the marketplace.”

Reduce Big Tech’s Gatekeeping Power To Allow More Innovation and Transparency

“You would have other app store opportunities if you get rid of some of this anti-competitive behavior. We've talked about the ethics situation and looking at this payment system and being forced to use the app store’s in-app payment system, preventing developers from communicating directly with consumers… Many users of apps would like to have that direct interface with the app developer. So I think you would see greater business-to-consumer communication as well as more options for an app store that would host some of these innovations.”