It’s Time To Break Up Amazon, Google, and Facebook – Elizabeth Warren

Senator Elizabeth Warren stated today that, if she is elected president in the year 2020, her administration “will break up the giants of the tech industry” such as; Facebook, Google and Amazon.

This proposal seems to be the most stringent stance ever taken by any candidate so far in the presidential campaign. Pointing towards the antitrust battle over Microsoft in 1990s, Warren explained that the companies have to be broken up in order to stimulate healthy competition in a monopolistic market.

IT’S TIME TO BREAK UP OUR BIGGEST TECH COMPANIES

“As these companies have grown larger and more powerful, they have used their resources and control over the way we use the Internet to squash small businesses and innovation, and substitute their own financial interests for the broader interests of the American people,” Warren explained.

Senator Elizabeth Warren

“To restore the balance of power in our democracy, to promote competition, and to ensure that the next generation of technology innovation is as vibrant as the last, it’s time to break up our biggest tech companies.”

Her proposal explains that the big tech companies have tightened up their grip on the digital market via mergers and that regulators have loosely let those deals pass. She also added that the result so far has been “a dramatic reduction in competition and innovation in the tech sector.”

HOW REGULATORS COULD BREAK UP THE BIG TECH COMPANIES

Warren’s proposal also explains a mapped out plan on how regulators can break up these tech firms. She plans to pass legislative designation platforms with over $25 billion in revenue as “platform utilities,” which will be barred from owning both the “participants” on the platform and owning the platform at the same time. Smaller tech companies would not be made to face the same requirements as the big ones. A regulation like that should have an immediate effect on the digital economy.

WARREN WOULD APPOINT REGULATORS TO UNDO MERGERS

If elected president, Warren said she would equally appoint regulators to reverse mergers already made. The proposal highlighted some examples of mergers including Facebook’s acquisiting WhatsApp and Instagram, Amazon acquisiting Whole Foods, and Google acquisiting of Waze and Nest.