Lina Khan, the new chairman of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), is only 32 years old. She was born in Yale Law School and is proficient in the anti-monopoly law of the United States.
The new chairman now has an opportunity to exert his antitrust ambitions through the FTC platform. She took over the chairmanship of the Federal Trade Commission in June this year. One stone provoked a thousand waves. When the news of the appointment came out, American technology giants were worried. These technology giants are typical of the concentration of power in the industry, so they are not surprising to become Lena's "eyesore".
At present, Facebook and Amazon Has stood up and said no to Lena. On July 14, Facebook, a social media giant, submitted a motion to the Federal Trade Commission of the United States, asking Lena Khan to avoid the antitrust lawsuit related to it. Facebook argued in the motion that, according to Lena's public statements in the past, it had a preconceived prejudice against Facebook, and that Facebook violated the anti-monopoly law, so it was impossible to deal with the related anti-monopoly litigation fairly. It is reported that as early as June, Amazon had made a similar request for avoidance. It is likely that other companies will follow up the two giants and issue similar motions.
In the past, there have been requests for a FTC member to avoid in litigation, but generally speaking, they are not very common. This time, the same FTC member was repeatedly asked by two companies to avoid litigation in a short period of time, which is even more rare. FTC and its members tend to be very careful when handling such requests for avoidance, and try to avoid giving people an excuse.
As of today, the Federal Trade Commission has not arranged for Lena Khan, its chairman, to be interviewed by the media, nor has it responded to requests for comment.
Lena was very outspoken in her criticism of Facebook and Amazon. She believes that it is unfair for Facebook to arbitrarily lower users' privacy rights by virtue of its monopoly position in the social network field. She also believes that Amazon has gained an unfair competitive advantage in the competition with its platform retailers by obtaining their product sales data.
Lena does not hold shares of competitors of Facebook and Amazon. In the statement of financial position disclosed to the Senate Commerce Committee, she only listed retirement plans and some benefits that she was entitled to when she temporarily left Columbia University. Therefore, her views on the two companies are not driven by the interest relationship.
In addition, Lena may also be involved in Google Antitrust litigation. Google has been sued. The regulator believes that it has an unfair competitive advantage in the online advertising market and forces Android device manufacturers to add Google applications to their products. Apple It also attracts public attention because it controls the behavior of its competitors through the app store.
In a statement, Facebook said: "Chairman Lena Khan has made many public comments on Facebook and antitrust affairs, and any rational observer can reasonably believe that she has made a first mover judgment on the antitrust litigation initiated by FTC involving Facebook."
The technology giants argued that their actions did not violate the anti-monopoly law. Since the 1970s, judging whether an action constitutes a monopoly has always been conducted from the perspective of price. In theory, if a company controls the whole market, it will raise the market price to gain more profits.
But technology giants believe that most of the services they provide are free to consumers, and advertisers and other business customers are paying for them. Take Amazon for example, the company has always taken the route of "small profits but quick turnover" in retail business.
Lina believes that it is not comprehensive to judge whether a monopoly is constituted only based on price factors, ignoring other threats brought by technology giants after they have gained a dominant position in the market. These technology giants will crowd out their competitors from the market after gaining a leading position, leaving consumers with few other options in shopping, online social networking and online search. When Lena was a student of Yale Law School, she published an article on enterprise monopoly in Yale Law Journal. She wrote in this article that because economic and political power is concentrated in a small number of enterprises and their leaders, these enterprises can abuse their competitive strategies; The popularity of the Internet has also rapidly expanded their power, allowing technology giants to control multiple industries. Lena believes that these enterprises should be subject to review if they want to solve the problem of power monopoly.
Lena Khan, "Rooted and Red"
This article established Lena Khan's star status in the field of anti-monopoly law at one fell swoop, and also helped Lena establish the image of an anti-monopoly progressive reformer. She has never worked in Silicon Valley, which is in sharp contrast to the traditional federal regulators, who usually flow between government agencies and business lobby groups and constantly change roles through the "revolving door". With the development and growth of technology giants, the trend of personnel flowing from government departments to high-tech companies in Silicon Valley is also growing, which has sounded an alarm for the advocates of antitrust cause.
According to LinkedIn data, some of the people employed by Amazon, Google and Facebook in 2020 had previously worked in the Department of Antitrust of the Ministry of Justice, FTC Antitrust Group, Senate Judicial Committee, House Judicial Committee and other government departments. The flow of government personnel to private enterprises is beneficial to these companies, enabling them to establish personal contacts with government regulators and legislative bodies.
Lena, who has never worked in a private enterprise, has obviously taken a completely different path. 2010 from Williams After graduating from college, she joined the New America Foundation, mainly engaged in anti-monopoly research. After graduating from Yale Law School, she served as the legal director of the newly established Open Markets Institute (a non-profit organization focusing on monopoly hazards) for one year, and then joined the House Judiciary Committee's Subcommittee on Antitrust, Commercial Law and Administrative Law.
During her tenure in the Subcommittee, she submitted a 449 page report to the Committee, pointing out the abuse of "monopoly power" by some major technology companies. Since then, the House Judiciary Committee has proposed five anti-monopoly bills, which are likely to have a significant impact on the technology industry. In October 2020, Lena Khan joined Columbia University Law School as an associate professor. At present, she temporarily left Columbia University and took the post of FTC chairman.
Some people think that Lena Khan wrote an anti-monopoly report for the legislature, and then the legislature legislated accordingly, and then she implemented these laws as a supervisor (i.e., as the chairman of the FTC), saying that her personal views did not constitute a conflict of interest, which is somewhat implausible.
Anti monopoly storm sweeps technology giants
Lena's current work focuses on Amazon's monopoly on its retailers. The company sells cloud storage, advertising and other services to retailers on its platform. The American Choice and Innovation Online Act has prohibited Amazon and other market platform owners from spoiling their own products and forcing third-party retailers to buy their products. Amazon has denied the allegations of coercion.
Facebook is now facing an FTC lawsuit, which will be the first test after Lina takes office. In June this year, a federal judge rejected a FTC charge. The accusation said that Facebook had illegal anti competitive behavior, but the judge thought that the evidence of this accusation was insufficient, and asked FTC to supplement the evidence before the end of July, and then resubmit the appeal.
Google, the search giant, has struggled with FTC for many years. In 2019, Google's YouTube was fined 170 million US dollars for violating the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act, the largest fine ever. Recently, Google has become the target of several major antitrust lawsuits, including one lawsuit from the Ministry of Justice and two lawsuits initiated by the US state alliance. Currently, US regulators are investigating Google's search and advertising business, as well as its Android operating system.
Apple is naturally involved. Anti trust reformers questioned Apple's preference for its own developed applications, and its App Store was also criticized. Because the App Store has too much power and controls application developers, they can only sell their applications in the App Store, with a sales commission of up to 30%.
Just in time
Lena was born in London in 1989 to Pakistani parents and immigrated to the United States when she was 11 years old. When she was in high school in New York, she wrote news for the school newspaper, covering a local family Starbucks It is forbidden for students to enter the store. Relying on the first-class educational background and a large number of speech activities, Lina has established an image of antitrust authority for herself. At her FTC chairman nomination hearing, she was very clear about the technical analysis of the anti-monopoly law, and often used gestures to emphasize a certain point of view.
Although some observers are critical of her legal analysis, few doubt her talent. When the political wind changed, she positioned herself as an expert in the antitrust field, which greatly helped her.
During the Obama administration, large technology companies were Washington's favorite. These companies took advantage of this time to consolidate their power, firmly occupy their own markets, and at the same time expand to other markets.
Lena has witnessed and recorded the growth and expansion of technology giants. She is also good at using the media to attract important and influential supporters. Her reviews were published in American Outlook, CNN, Foreign Policy, New Republic, Quartz, Salon, Washington Monthly and Washington Post.
She soon became an important figure in the New Brandeis Movement, which fundamentally reconsidered the anti-monopoly law enforcement methods in the United States, especially in the monopoly of technology giants. Supporters of this movement support the populist competition policy of the 21st century, which was advocated by Justice Louis Brandeis of the Supreme Court. Supporters believe that the anti-monopoly law should not only focus on high prices and other short-term behaviors that harm consumers' interests, but also on the concentration of market power, which makes it impossible for new enterprises in any industry to compete effectively.
The concentration of wealth may also lead to the emergence of business oligarchs, which have a great influence on people's daily life. Lena once published an article on Amazon in Yale Law Review. In the article, she quoted the words of Senator John Sherman: "If we cannot tolerate the existence of the king as a political monopoly power, then we should also not tolerate the existence of monopoly power in the fields of production, transportation and sales." Senator Sherman wrote the foundational anti-monopoly law of the United States in 1890.
Lena's comments triggered people's growing dissatisfaction with Silicon Valley, which is even more serious than Washington's party politics. Elizabeth Warren, a progressive senator from Massachusetts, expressed her approval of Lena's views when she was seeking the presidential nomination. Former President Trump and his supporters also expressed their support for Facebook Twitter And Google's YouTube platform, believing that these platforms have suppressed their voice on the Internet. At the recent congressional hearing, lawmakers from both parties severely reprimanded the executives sent by the technology giants to attend the hearing.
Therefore, when Biden succeeded Trump as President of the United States, Lena was already in a favorable position to join the Federal Trade Commission.
Can Lina carry out the work smoothly?
Lena's views on anti-monopoly law enforcement are different from those of recent court decisions and economists since the 1970s. She has unique views, but is relatively inexperienced, which led to her being questioned in the Senate nomination process. Mike Lee, a Republican senator from Utah, said in a statement in March this year: "Lena Khan's career prospects must be very bright, but she became the chairman of the Federal Trade Commission less than four years after graduating from Yale Law School, lacking the necessary experience. Her views on anti-monopoly law enforcement are also very different from the principle of prudent law enforcement."
Lena's smooth work depends on who President Biden will appoint to other senior antitrust positions. These senior positions include positions in the Anti Monopoly Department of the Ministry of Justice and members of the Federal Trade Commission. At present, Democrats have a 3-2 advantage over Republicans in the Federal Trade Commission, but Democrat Rohit Chopra is expected to leave the commission soon and move to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau as a leader.
Before President Biden nominates the successor of Chopra, the number ratio of the two parties in the FTC will be locked at 2:2, and the voting may be deadlocked. In addition, President Biden may also replace Chopra with a moderate style Democrat to hedge against Lena Khan's more radical style. This may also affect the work of the new FTC chairman.
Of course, if Biden chooses progressives to hold senior positions in anti-monopoly, the anti-monopoly law of the United States may usher in earth shaking changes.
