Senator Elizabeth Warren is proposing to impose new regulations on the tech industry that would require major players such as Google LLC to split off key parts of their business.

Warren, a 2020 Democratic presidential contender, outlined the plan in a Medium post today. Her proposed regulatory changes would classify tech firms that operate online platforms such as app stores and generate over $25 billion in annual sales as “platform utilities.” This designation would come with a raft of new legal requirements, most notably in regard to what products affected companies may offer.

Warren’s proposal seeks to block tech giants from selling their own apps, merchandise and other offerings on the platforms they operate. Amazon.com Inc., for instance, would be required to stop offering Amazon Basic-branded products through its marketplace. Google would have to separate its ad and search businesses by spinning off the latter.

The proposal also aims to establish new rules around tech giants’ relationships with their users. “Platform utilities would be required to meet a standard of fair, reasonable, and nondiscriminatory dealing with users. Platform utilities would not be allowed to transfer or share data with third parties,” Warren wrote.

In addition to the tech industry’s largest players, the plan seeks to impose this latter set of rules on smaller tech companies with $90 million to $25 billion in revenues. Such firms would be allowed to sell their own products on their platforms.

The second major objective of the plan is to create a legislative mechanism to “unwind anti-competitive mergers.”  Warren singled out a number of specific deals in her post today including Facebook Inc.’s purchase of WhatsApp, Google’s purchase of Nest and Amazon’s acquisition of Whole Foods. 

“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,” Warren wrote.

The proposal comes days after the Federal Trade Commission took a step towards more closely regulating tech companies by launching a dedicated task force to monitor the industry. The unit will, among others, be responsible for reviewing past and current acquisitions to determine if they harm the competition. This suggests the FTC, too, may have started looking at the possibility of rolling back certain tech industry deals.

For all that, some longtime observers of the technology business are criticizing Warren’s proposal as poorly thought-out and lacking specifics. Some also wonder why it’s focused on companies that have become huge largely because of the popularity of their services more than a fundamental lack of choice, and instead suggest better targets would be monopolies or semi-monopolies such as internet service providers.

Photo: Marc Nozell/Flickr