“Aren’t we all glad that we now have the option of using Google instead of being stuck with Bing?” she asserted.

I had to chew on this. Google is the dominant search tool in most of the non-China world and a monopoly in certain rich countries. Bing, Microsoft’s search engine, launched after Google already was dominant. It has been a relatively also-ran. I’m not certain that consumers ever feared being stuck with Bing; they probably don’t give Bing much thought at all.

Warren’s point is that Google arose because Microsoft was slowed in the 1990s by antitrust regulators. (She is theorizing that Microsoft, in the normal course of things, would have offered Bing and that it would have been lame.) Now Google must get the same treatment so the next Google has a chance, which it won’t unless Warren becomes president.

I’d argue that changes in antitrust enforcement are far more likely than a Warren presidency. She has two broad ideas, and the second feels like more and more of a sure thing: Antitrust regulators should do their jobs better. It’s hard to argue that Google, Facebook, and Amazon should be able to snuff out and otherwise use their market power to harass competitors. All sorts of candidates, Democratic and Trumpist, will be interested in addressing this.

Warren’s other idea is to prohibit “platform” companies with more than $25 billion in revenues from also selling their own goods and services on their platforms. This is arbitrary and unfair, but that hasn’t stopped Congress from disallowing big banks from charging fees that are fine for small banks.

Like the Green New Deal, Warren’s proposal isn’t a bill, which is telling because legislation is something a senator has in her power to offer. Instead, it is a conversation starter. And it’s a conversation worth having.

Jeff Seal

Managing Partner

Telecom Review North America