Washington D.C.’s scorn for Big Tech is no secret—lawmakers on both sides of the aisle aren’t quick to give firms like Google and Facebook a break. Presidential hopeful Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Massachusetts, recently continued this trend with her pledge to break up big tech companies if she’s elected in 2020. But her plan would do far more damage than her supporters envision.

Warren has proposed turning large technology platforms into a type of public utility, and reversing recent deals, like Facebook and Amazon’s respective purchases of WhatsApp and Whole Foods. This approach would do little to improve America’s competitive landscape in a digitized economy.

In a blog post announcing her plan, Warren called for renewed vigor in antitrust enforcement to restore innovation and competition in the U.S. economy. Sure, making America more innovative and competitive are noble goals, but it’s unclear from the senator’s proposals how using antitrust law against Big Tech would actually achieve them. Warren argues that transforming Amazon Marketplace into a “platform utility,” prohibiting the company from owning the platform or any sellers on it, would boost small businesses’ ability to compete and earn more.

But transforming successful platforms into utilities would snuff out competition and innovation—not help it. What up-and-coming private firm could dream of competing with a publically-managed Amazon? This would be introducing a new problem, as online platforms have been displaced by competitors for years. Facebook outcompeted MySpace, and Reddit replaced Digg, but the historical examples of businesses directly and effectively competing with public utilities are scarce.

Sellers on Amazon’s platform would suffer, too. It’s unclear how a public Amazon Marketplace could achieve the kinds of innovation it currently boasts. Were Amazon’s renowned service quality decline as a utility, it would harm the robust e-commerce market the company has created. Fewer people would use it, and the overall revenues for all of the site’s individual sellers would drop dramatically.

From Google to Uber, similar issues would appear for any other technology company no longer allowed to make a profit. By preventing companies from owning the platforms they have created, the currently vibrant digital economy would face the same stagnation we see among existing utilities. Do we really want cyberspace to become as inefficient as our water management?

Warren’s second suggestion was to appoint regulators who would reverse mergers and acquisitions that she disagrees with, claiming that tech’s corporate acquisitions reduce innovation and competitiveness in the digital economy. But the evidence doesn’t support this.

Take, for example, Amazon’s acquisition of Whole Foods, which allowed the company to diversify its market and play an even larger role in everyday life. This move didn’t kill competition in the grocery market — it intensified it. Insiders in the grocery industry even dubbed the merger a “wake-up call” that has motivated conventional grocers to more aggressively invest in their online sales, improve physical locations, invest in new technology, and ultimately, lower costs for shoppers.

Attempting to bind online companies with outdated industrial-era rules will prevent policymakers from thinking outside-the-box to create a new, more prosperous landscape for the digital economy. Warren even admits antitrust can do little to “give people more control over how their personal information is collected, shared, and sold” or “help America’s content creators… keep more of the value their content generates.”

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Newsom should sign bill granting civilian oversight of sheriff’s departments It’s easy to champion blanket antitrust solutions while leaving the more difficult and fundamental problems to be addressed later. But Amazon, Google, and Facebook are as large as they are because of how the digital economy works, not because of antitrust failures. Addressing the hard questions now would reshape digital competition, creating pro-competitive and pro-innovative incentives. It’s a better option than stifling the market without good reason.

Instead of breaking up companies, America needs federal privacy regulation to help companies understand what data they can and cannot use, and for what reasons. Companies more aware of the rules around data would be willing to make bigger bets—innovating in areas which desperately need their attention, like healthcare.

But the current Warren-style antagonism toward Big Tech isn’t helping anyone. Warren’s supporters, and all Americans who like healthy competition in their economy, should take note.

Ryan Khurana is Executive Director of the Institute for Advancing Prosperity and a contributor for Young Voices.