FTC Chairman of the "Antitrust Fighter": Will not back down in the face of giant threats or intimidation, and will focus on a new generation of technology

On Wednesday, January 19, Lina Khan, the new chair of the FTC of the United States, was interviewed exclusively by the financial media CNBC. It was her first public interview in front of the camera since she took office, revealing key topics such as regulatory plans for big tech companies.

Last summer, both Facebook and Amazon, tech giants under investigation by the FTC, sought to get Lina Khan to recuse herself from antitrust cases against the companies involved, on the grounds that the latter's long-standing criticism of tech companies' monopolies on their career paths may not be fair in their investigations.

But a judge in the FTC's antitrust lawsuit against Facebook confirmed last week that Khan's recusal in the case was unnecessary because she would not play the de facto judge or adjudication role, which Khan said in an interview today that "the decision was fantastic."

She also said it takes "courage" to compete with companies with enormous power, and that under her leadership, the FTC will no longer back down from intimidation or threats from more resourced adversaries, a lesson learned from the historical practices of law enforcers over the past decade, "in fact, these companies may have been treated only lightly in the past." ”

She declined to say whether she supports any antitrust law reforms that Congress is considering, but welcomed congressional action and called for increased budgetary and law enforcement resources for the FTC to take on more cases and stop better-resourced companies from trying to interfere with law enforcement.

In terms of reforms for the "three fires of new officials in office," Khan wants to overhaul the FTC, including expanding the regulator's thinking on competition policy and consumer protection. In particular, she noted that while focusing on past violations by companies, the FTC "prejudges the next generation of technologies that can help companies accumulate power" and that the FTC's choice of enforcement action will give special consideration to deterrence effects on potentially illegal behavior.

She said the types of cases the FTC might consider include "situations where an action is likely to have an impact on the market as a whole and can really change the dynamics of the market as a whole," rather than scratching the shoe on a particular company, and then the FTC will go out and seek to reach a specific settlement agreement or win a court trial. The agency is also considering cracking down on illegal practices that may involve "stifling competition at source":

"Bad practices that certain types of intermediaries or companies can fuel, such as going upstream and really trying to stifle it at the source, may also be a way for us to try to channel limited resources (to conduct investigations or lawsuits) more effectively."

According to a previous article on Wall Street, the current FTC chairman Lina Khan was confirmed as a member of the FTC by the US Senate in May 2021, and was quickly appointed by the Biden administration as the "number one" of the agency a month later. She has always been known as an "antitrust fighter," and her appointment is seen as a loud regulatory clarion call to big tech companies, and even the possibility of spinning off giants.

The FTC is eyeing Facebook and Amazon, and it is directly attacking its core business and future growth engine.

The FTC, which reached a $5 billion settlement with Facebook in 2019, asked the company to strengthen privacy and data security protections after the scandal over millions of users' information was improperly shared with political data analytics firm Cambridge Analytica. In late 2020, the FTC launched a study of social media platforms, asking Facebook and other internet companies how to tailor services for children. Last August, the FTC filed a new antitrust lawsuit against Facebook, accusing it of abusing its monopoly position on social media. Two months later, the FTC reopened an investigation into the company over "former Facebook employee whistle-blowing doors" to assess whether it violated the 2019 settlement.

At the same time, the FTC's antitrust investigation into Amazon first began during the Trump administration, focusing mainly on the company's retail and cloud computing businesses. The investigation is not only still ongoing, but also the trend of upgrading, and the latest news late last year said that the FTC suspected that Amazon's cloud computing business discriminated against software vendors, potentially punishing companies that worked with other cloud service providers and favoring EXCLUSIVE PARTNERS at AWS. The cloud computing service AWS is precisely Amazon's most profitable business. Khan wrote in 2017 accusing Amazon of violating antitrust laws.

Facebook shares rose more than 2 percent after afternoon trading on Wednesday, and Amazon shares turned down 0.6 percent, both falling more than 5 percent so far this year.

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