Wednesday, October 23

House Republicans interrogate FTC’s Khan over ethics, antitrust points

WASHINGTON — House Republicans who say the Federal Trade Commission has been overzealous and politicized beneath President Joe Biden are interrogating company head Lina Khan, bringing her earlier than the House Judiciary Committee Thursday for the primary time amid her courtroom battles with large know-how firms.

Committee Chairman Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, has criticized Khan in latest months on a large number of points, together with what he says are politically motivated actions directed at Elon Musk after he acquired Twitter final yr, questions on whether or not she ought to have recused herself from sure circumstances and her authorized actions towards tech giants on antitrust points. In April, the committee subpoenaed Khan after an investigation by the panel that concluded the FTC “harassed” Twitter within the wake of Musk’s acquisition.

In her opening assertion, Khan defended her try and aggressively regulate the nation’s largest tech firms.



“Our competition mission is driven by the tenet that vigorous antitrust enforcement is critical to the growth and dynamism of our economy, as well as to our shared prosperity and liberty,” she mentioned. “Recent decades, however, have vividly illustrated how Americans lose out when markets become more consolidated and less competitive.”

The listening to comes because the company has been embroiled in a number of authorized circumstances towards know-how firms and as Khan – an outspoken critic of Big Tech earlier than changing into the company’s head – has tried, not all the time efficiently, to toughen authorities regulation of these firms.

Khan and the company suffered a significant defeat Tuesday when a federal choose declined to dam Microsoft’s looming $69 billion takeover of online game firm Activision Blizzard. The FTC had sought to ax the deal, saying it would harm competitors.

U.S. District Judge Jacqueline Scott Corley mentioned the deal – the biggest within the historical past of the tech business – deserved scrutiny however the FTC hadn’t proven that it will trigger severe hurt. The FTC is now interesting her ruling.

Another choose rebuffed the FTC’s try earlier this yr to cease Meta from taking on the digital actuality health firm Within Unlimited.

The FTC has additionally sued Amazon for allegedly partaking in a yearslong effort to enroll shoppers with out consent into Amazon Prime and making it troublesome for them to cancel their subscriptions. In a grievance filed in federal courtroom final month, the company accused Amazon of utilizing misleading designs, referred to as “dark patterns,” to deceive shoppers into enrolling within the service.

The company has been investigating Twitter, together with efforts this spring to acquire proprietor Elon Musk’s inner communications, as a part of ongoing oversight into the social media firm’s privateness and cybersecurity practices.

The company has been watching the corporate for years since Twitter agreed to a 2011 consent order alleging severe knowledge safety lapses. But the company’s considerations spiked with the tumult that adopted Musk’s October takeover of the corporate and mass layoffs.

Twitter, now beneath father or mother firm X Corp., on Thursday forward of the congressional listening to requested a federal courtroom to finish that consent order and “rein in an investigation that has spiraled out of control and become tainted by bias.”

Democrats defended Khan’s work. New York Rep. Jerry Nadler, the highest Democrat on the Judiciary panel, informed Khan at he opening of the listening to that he hopes Republicans can put their “baseless and often personal attacks on pause long enough to focus on the importance of your mission.”

Khan, a authorized scholar, was a recognized tech critic when she took over the company in 2021 and her nomination was seen as a sign from the Biden administration that it will be robust on know-how firms as they’ve been beneath intense strain from different regulators and state attorneys basic.

She was a professor at Columbia University Law School and have become recognized for her scholarly work in 2017 as a Yale regulation pupil, “Amazon’s Antitrust Paradox.” That work helped lay the inspiration for a brand new method of taking a look at antitrust regulation past the impression of big-company market dominance on shopper costs.

And she has expertise with the Judiciary committee, having served as counsel to the panel’s antitrust subcommittee in 2019 and 2020. In that function she performed a key function in a sweeping bipartisan investigation of the market energy of the tech giants.

Jordan’s House Judiciary panel has additionally gone after the tech firms for what Republicans say is censorship of conservatives. The committee subpoenaed the chief executives of the 5 largest tech firms in February as a part of an effort to analyze Big Tech’s moderation of content material.

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O’Brien reported from Providence, Rhode Island.

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