What Makes Sen Warren’s Platform Proposal So Potentially Important.

March 8, the Presidential campaign of Elizabeth Warren, not to be confused with the actual office of Sen Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), announced Warren’s plan for addressing the tech giants. What makes Warren’s contribution a potential game changer is that she goes well beyond the standard “break ’em up” rhetoric that has dominated most of the conversation to date, and focuses on sustainable sector specific regulation. What makes it so important and smart structurally is that the proposal: 

• Actually Defines Something That Can Be Regulated.
• Gives Clear Lines of Demarcation For Its Proposed Structural Separation, And Imposes Rules To Keep Them Separate.
• Recognizes That Dominance Matters In Sector Specific Regulation.
• Recognizes the Importance Of Multiple Enforcement Remedies.

Going forward, I would like to see legislators (and other potential Presidential candidates, of course) either endorse Warren’s approach or put forward their own solutions so that the debate we need can finally happen. After years of handwringing on one side and broad statements about breaking up companies on the other, we actually have a vehicle for a very real policy debate.