Apple isn't safe from Sen. Elizabeth Warren's plan to break up Big Tech
Tim Cook, Elizabeth Warren is coming for you.
Speaking to The Verge at SXSW, the 2020 Democratic presidential candidate made it ultra clear: just because she didn’t explicitly mention Apple in her policy proposal to break up the big tech companies doesn’t mean it’s safe from her scrutiny.
Under an Elizabeth Warren administration, Apple would be broken up, too.
“Apple, you’ve got to break it apart from their App Store,” said Warren, speaking to editor-in-chief of The Verge, Nilay Patel. “It’s got to be one or the other. Either they run the platform or they play in the store. They don’t get to do both at the same time.”
Warren made waves on Friday with a Medium post announcing how her administration would tackle tech monopolies like Amazon, Google, and Facebook. Basically, to end the anti-competitive practices in the industry, the Senator from Massachusetts proposes the following: break them up.
The presidential candidate would designate those tech giants and any other companies with at least $25 billion in yearly global revenue which “offer to the public an online marketplace, an exchange, or a platform for connecting third parties” as “platform utilities.”
Under Warren’s proposal, a company could run these platforms but it couldn’t also sell its own products on them. In Amazon’s case, for example, it could run its ecommerce services but it couldn’t also sell its own AmazonBasics products on the platform.
While Apple wasn’t mentioned in her post alongside Amazon, Google, and Facebook, Warren has now made it clear the same would go for the Cupertino-based iPhone maker. Apple couldn’t both run the App Store and release its own apps through the platform.
“These big companies exert enormous influence in the economy and in Washington, DC,” said Warren. “We break them apart, that backs up the influence a little bit, and it makes absolutely sure that they’re not engaged in these unfair practices that stomp out every little business that’s trying to get a start.”
