U.S. presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren said Friday that she, if elected, will seek legislation to break up the country's tech giants like Amazon, Facebook and Google, which she said "have too much power."
Writing in a post on Medium, an online publishing platform, the Democratic senator from the state of Massachusetts called the rise of Facebook, Google and Amazon "a great story? - ?but also one that highlights why the government must break up monopolies and promote competitive markets."
"Today's big tech companies have too much power," said Warren, who on Feb. 9 announced her candidacy for the 2020 U.S. presidential election.
"They've bulldozed competition, used our private information for profit, and tilted the playing field against everyone else. And in the process, they have hurt small businesses and stifled innovation," she said.
She proposed that companies with an annual global revenue of 25 billion U.S. dollars or more and that offer online marketplace, an exchange, or a platform, be designated as "platform utilities" and be prohibited from acquiring any of the participants on their platforms.
"These companies would be prohibited from owning both the platform utility and any participants on that platform," Warren explained, adding that platform utilities "would be required to meet a standard of fair, reasonable, and nondiscriminatory dealing with users" and "would not be allowed to transfer or share data with third parties."
The senator said Amazon Marketplace, Google's Ad Exchange, and Google Search would be platform utilities under this law. "Therefore, Amazon Marketplace and Basics, and Google's ad exchange and businesses on the exchange would be split apart. Google Search would have to be spun off as well."
Furthermore, Warren said if assuming office, she would "appoint regulators committed to reversing illegal and anti-competitive tech mergers," including Amazon's merger with Whole Foods and Zappos, Facebook's acquisition of WhatsApp and Instagram, as well as Google's purchase of Waze, Nest and DoubleClick.
"Unwinding these mergers will promote healthy competition in the market - which will put pressure on big tech companies to be more responsive to user concerns, including about privacy," she said.
