In a new poll conducted by ACT | The App Association, likely voters share their tech policy priorities and express concern around current approaches to antitrust
Less than two weeks out from Election Day, a new poll from the App Association and fielded by Embold Research shows likely voters across the United States strongly support Congress passing a national data privacy law and are concerned about the impact and repercussions of the government’s aggressive antitrust approach and current lawsuits against technology companies.
“Before Americans cast their votes on Election Day, our survey found there is near universal support for a national data privacy law and other key priorities for the App Association and our members,” said Morgan Reed, president of ACT | The App Association. “Critically, as the Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission pursue antitrust cases against technology companies, American voters, by a wide margin, are concerned about the impact of these lawsuits to dismantle services small businesses rely on. This should serve as a strong warning for both the current and the incoming Administrations.”
The poll also found that voters highly distrust Congress when it comes to developing, protecting, and regulating tech, including artificial intelligence (AI). Instead, the poll revealed that likely voters want the next Congress and the incoming Administration to prioritize policies that support small businesses and American companies.
Top findings from the survey include:
Voters overwhelmingly say passing a national data privacy law should be a priority for Congress: Nearly eight in 10 voters consider a comprehensive federal privacy law to be an “extremely” or “very” important priority for Congress. A total of 96 percent of likely voters say passing a comprehensive federal privacy law is either extremely, very, or somewhat important. Only 4 percent say otherwise. The results were uniform across party lines, with 82 percent of Democratic voters, 86 percent of independents, and 76 percent of Republicans naming it a priority.
Voters think antitrust lawsuits will harm small businesses and their access to key services: The vast majority of voters (72 percent) say they are concerned that the government pursuing antitrust lawsuits could dismantle services small businesses rely on, such as access to a global market and built-in consumer trust. Nearly seven in 10 voters (68 percent) are concerned that antitrust lawsuits against one large company’s services, like Apple’s App Store and the Google Play store, may only benefit other large companies and competitors.
Post-election, voters want Congress and the incoming Administration to prioritize policies that support small businesses and American companies: Voters are overwhelmingly in favor (78 percent) of the U.S. government working to prevent other countries from imposing unfair trade barriers and discriminatory restrictions or fees on American companies. Six in 10 voters (59 percent) want Congress to reinstate research and development tax deductions for small businesses.
Voters display high distrust of Congress when it comes to developing, protecting, and regulating tech: Voters overwhelmingly distrust the government’s abilities to either protect (82 percent distrust) or regulate (83 percent) the use of artificial intelligence, new technologies (81 percent distrust on regulation, 77 percent distrust on protection), and protect small businesses and app developers (79 percent). Moreover, just 39 percent of voters believe that the government should lead in the development of new technologies – in contrast, two-thirds of voters believe that technology development should be in the hands of the private sector.
Survey Methodology*: The survey was commissioned by the App Association and conducted online by Embold Research. Post-stratification was performed on age, gender, education, race/ethnicity, region, and the 2020 Presidential vote. Weighting parameters were based on the breakdowns of each group, obtained from the voter file; that is, if x% of voters were women, then women would be weighted to x% of the sample. Presidential results were retrieved from the Secretaries of State. Embold Research surveyed 1,333 likely voters nationwide from October 10-14, 2024. We used the following sources to recruit respondents targeted advertisements on Facebook and Instagram, as well as across the web via Facebook’s ad platform (1,041 respondents) and text messages sent, via the Echo 19 platform, to cell phone numbers listed on the voter file for individuals who qualified for the survey’s sample universe, based on their voter file data (292 respondents).
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About ACT | The App Association & Members
The App Association is a global trade association for small and medium-sized technology companies. Our members are entrepreneurs, innovators, and independent developers within the global app ecosystem that engage with verticals across every industry. We work with and for our members to promote a policy environment that rewards and inspires innovation while providing resources that help them raise capital, create jobs, and continue to build incredible technology.
The modeled margin of error for this survey is 2.8 percent, which uses effective sample sizes** that adjust for the design effect of weighting. This research, like all public opinion research, does entail some additional unmeasured error.