The United States Senate confirmed the appointment of Lina Khan as chair of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). This decision, promoted by President Joe Biden, is significant in the technological landscape, since Khan has been critical of the large companies in the sector, in addition to that it could represent changes in the application of antitrust laws.
“The appointment of Lina Khan as president of the FTC is tremendous news,” described Senator Elizabeth Warren, also known for her critical stance towards Big Tech. “Lina will bring deep knowledge and experience to this role and will be a courageous advocate. of consumers ”.
In this way, Khan will fill the vacancy left by Republican Joseph Simons and give a majority to the Democrats on the Commission, which is relevant, since the appointment represents a greater focus on antitrust regulation against the main technology companies, in the which has specialized.
Khan, 32, is a professor of law at Columbia University. His stance has been critical that little has been done to restrict corporate dominance and stop mergers that have diluted competition.
In 2017, he captured the attention after heading an article titled, in which he argued that new statutes were necessary to prevent anti-competitive behavior online from platforms such as Amazon. She also has experience in the public sector, having been an advisor to Democrats on the House of Representatives’ Subcommittee on Antitrust Practices.
Within this instance, last year it played an important role in the preparation of a report on competition in digital markets. Specifically, Khan worked in the section dedicated to Google and since then, the company has been sued on antitrust grounds by the Department of Justice.
The document even recommended carrying out legislative reforms, in order to revitalize competition in the digital ecosystem. As a result, the antitrust subcommittee of the House of Representatives last week published a series of bipartisan bills aimed at reducing the power of large companies.
As President Khan will be tasked with voting on enforcement issues in the areas of competition and consumer protection. Therefore, you will have to deal with questions such as whether companies have effectively secured their users’ data or misled them through their marketing campaigns, among other issues.
Therefore, it will be one more effort by the FCT to become a more aggressive regulator against anti-competitive behavior. In this sense, one of its most representative cases was the fine of 5,000 million dollars to Cambridge Analytica, from Facebook, which was insufficient for many analysts.
In this sense, it is worth mentioning that the Judicial Committee of the United States House of Representatives will vote next week on a package of antitrust bills recently presented and among them, several that point to the market power of big technology stand out.
Two of the projects, according to information from Reuters, address the problem of giant companies such as Amazon and Google, which create a platform for other companies and then compete against those same companies.
These projects, one of which would force companies to sell businesses, are the ones that attract the most opposition. Some tech-friendly groups have said it could spell the end of popular promotions like free shipping on Amazon Prime and iMessage on iPhones.
For its part, technology companies are in a moment of turbulence, because in addition to Khan’s presentation at the FCT and the laws to be discussed in the coming days, last week the G7 announced an agreement that supports the creation of a minimum tax 15% worldwide for large companies to pay taxes in countries where they receive benefits and market their products, even when they do not have physical offices.
Although the proposal requires acceptance by more countries around the world, the position of the G7 is a starting point that could find an echo in the next meeting of the G20, which will be held in July, where it will be discussed. the goal of tech companies paying a new tax around the world in the future.
