The chair of the Federal Trade Commission wants to disrupt Amazon, whose founder, Jeff Bezos, built a trillion-dollar firm by disrupting retail.
Since Lina Khan became Federal Trade Commission chair in 2021, she’s challenged Meta, Microsoft, and Amazon, and that’s made her a lightning rod for controversy. WSJ breaks down the battles she’s picked and why she’s willing to lose.
Lina Khan has said a fear of defeat should not deter the agency from suing big tech companies. But after Microsoft won a ruling this week, her critics say that strategy is flawed.
The agency is expected to focus on Amazon’s online marketplace. Khan is deemed unlikely to accept any tweaks to the business.
House Oversight Committee Members Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) and Nancy Mace (R-S.C.) have committed to schedule hearings in the coming months to investigate whether FTC Chair Lina Khan has been following the law, according to sources close to the situation.
Khan, the chair of the Federal Trade Commission, has staked an ambitious trustbusting agenda on a case that may be difficult to win.
Exclusives
FTC Chair Upends Antitrust Standards With Meta Lawsuit
Lina Khan may set off a shift in how Washington regulates competition by filing cases in tech areas before they mature. She faces an uphill climb.
The management style of President Biden’s pick to lead the agency is leading to staff discontent and risks derailing her ambitions, according to the New York Post. Sources close to the agency say that her academic brilliance doesn’t necessarily translate into management ability — and that its 33-year-old leader’s inexperience has longtime staffers at the 1,100-person agency heading for the exits.
Federal Trade Commission Chair Lina Khan has a busy year ahead of her. With the panel’s newly restored Democratic majority, the agency tasked with enforcing antitrust laws and protecting consumers is poised to tackle a diverse set of issues across the economy. “As a general matter, we have a very active year ahead that’s planned,” Khan, who was picked by President Biden to lead the agency early in his term, said Wednesday.
With the confirmation of a third Democrat to the Federal Trade Commission, the progressive chair, Lina Khan, regains the agency’s majority — and the ability to speed ahead with her priorities.
The Federal Trade Commission is pushing forward with antitrust scrutiny of Amazon’s cloud computing business, according to people familiar with the matter. Lina Khan, the head of the agency and a vocal critic of the online retailer, is advancing a probe started several years ago by her predecessor.
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce is challenging the Federal Trade Commission’s chairwoman, contending in a series of letters that she is overstepping the agency’s legal authority. The agency says it won’t back down.
Criticized by Republicans, Khan tells agency staffers she aims to build bridges going forward.
Federal Trade Commission Chair Lina Khan suggested last week that she plans to devote more resources to the “root causes” of unlawful activity than to prosecuting small-time violators.
Federal Trade Commission Chairwoman Lina Khan took aim at big technology companies in her first appearance before Congress as the agency’s head, saying online digital platforms are partly to blame for a surge in fraud reported by Americans during the pandemic. “Fraud has continued to surge,“ Khan said Wednesday before the House Energy and Commerce Committee. ”One reason is that fraud today is supercharged by digital platforms where this conduct is tolerated and even promoted.”
Without her vote, the case against Facebook could hit serious roadblocks, splitting the vote 2-2 between Democratic and Republican commissioners.
Amazon formally asked the Federal Trade Commission to block recently appointed agency chair Lina Khan — an outspoken critic of Amazon and other tech giants — from participating in antitrust reviews involving the company because she has shown a demonstrable bias against Amazon. Amazon on Wednesday filed a motion with the FTC requesting Khan’s recusal.
A federal judge’s dismissal of the Federal Trade Commission’s antitrust lawsuit against Facebook is posing the first big test for President Biden’s new FTC Chair Lina Khan. But the renowned big tech critic faces a serious time crunch, with less than 30 days to try and shift the momentum through a revamped lawsuit.
Without speaking a word or scratching a pen across paper, President Joe Biden drove up the pressure on Big Tech companies already smarting under federal and congressional investigations, epic antitrust lawsuits and near-constant condemnation from politicians of both parties.
The Federal Trade Commission will be the agency to review Amazon’s proposed acquisition of Hollywood studio MGM, according to people familiar with the matter, just as the commission gets a new chairwoman, Lina Khan, who has been critical of the online giant’s expansion.
The selection of legal scholar Lina Khan to head the Federal Trade Commission is seen as signaling a tough stance toward tech giants Facebook, Google, Amazon and Apple. Khan was sworn in as FTC chair just hours after the Senate confirmed her as one of five members of the commission on a 69-28 vote.
The Senate has confirmed a fifth commissioner, Lina Khan, to the Federal Trade Commission, so that regulatory body has a Democratic majority — some five months into the Biden administration — though it is still operating under an acting chair, Rebecca Kelly Slaughter.
The Senate Commerce Committee on Wednesday approved the nomination of Lina Khan to be a member of the Federal Trade Commission, clearing the way for a vote by the full Senate that would make her, a prominent critic of the tech giants, one of its most powerful regulators. The nomination of Khan, 32, has buoyed progressive hopes that President Biden will try to rein in Silicon Valley.
As expected, President Joe Biden said he will nominate antitrust expert Lina Khan to serve on the Federal Trade Commission. Khan, a professor at Columbia Law School, is among the most prominent critics of Big Tech. In 2017, while still a law student, Khan argued in the Yale Law Journal article “Amazon’s Antitrust Paradox” that antitrust policies should aim to preserve a “competitive process and market structure,” as opposed to just focusing on whether a company’s practices harm consumers in the short term.
While the Biden administration has been slow to appoint the key decisionmakers at agencies overseeing technology issues, a handful of people are on the inside track to lead them. By and large, these likely appointees do not have direct ties to Big Tech companies and have advocated for tougher measures against the industry. Many also previously served in the Obama administration and fall in the progressive camp.
President Biden has decided to nominate Lina Khan, a Columbia University legal scholar championed by anti-Big Tech activists, to the Federal Trade Commission. Along with the recent hiring of Tim Wu as an economic adviser inside the White House, the addition of Khan signals that Biden is poised to pursue an aggressive regulatory agenda when it comes to Amazon, Google, Facebook and other tech giants.
