A Better Way to Break Up Big Tech

Regulating big tech is quickly becoming a central theme of the 2020 presidential race. But many of the tech-industry insiders I spoke with, including some who agree with Sen Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) that the big companies are too powerful, cautioned that some of the details in her proposal were too vague, and could backfire if put into effect as written. Warren’s plan is a bold first stab at reform, and some of her proposals make a lot of sense. But I’d offer a few edits.

• Apply specific fixes to specific problems: Rather than one giant package that crams everything together, a set of effective tech regulations would treat each problem discretely, and address each with surgical precision.
• Split off cloud businesses.
• Get rid of the “app tax”: Stop Apple and Google, the makers of the two dominant mobile operating systems, from taking unfair advantage of mobile app developers.
• Don’t get lured into a censorship debate: focus squarely on competition, and avoid being sucked into partisan debates about content censorship.