FTC Chair Lina Khan Says Agency Pursuing 'Mob Bosses' in Big Tech

The U.S. Federal Trade Commission is prioritizing enforcement actions against major technology companies that cause the most harm, FTC Chair Lina Khan said at an event. Khan emphasized the importance of targeting "mob bosses" rather than lower-level offenders to effectively address illegal behaviors in the industry. The FTC has recently launched antitrust probes into Microsoft, Open AI, and Nvidia, and has taken legal action against Meta, Amazon, Google, and Apple in recent years. TechCrunch adds: Khan said that in any given year, the FTC sees up to 3,000 merger filings reported to the agency and that around 2% of those deals get a second look by the government. "So you have 98% of deals that, for the most part, are going through," she said. "If you are a startup or a founder that is eager for an acquisition as an exit, a world in which you have five or six or seven or eight potential suitors, I would think, is a better world in which you just have one or two, right? And so, actually promoting more competition at that level to ensure that startups have you know more of a fair chance of getting a better valuation, I think would be beneficial as well."

LegitiMates: The Dating Site for Busy Businessmen

[Pseudonymous Powers]

But I don't understand. All those crimes were committed by low-level employees, acting on their own behalf. To suggest that underlings sometimes perform ill deeds at the behest of the more powerful is to violate the long-established social contract, the "code of silence" if you will, that powerful business interests have with the government agencies charged with regulating them.

Re:

[boulat]

What are you babbling about?

Most employees won't fart without their manager's approval, in triplicate form, signed by the manager's manager and also confirmed by HR.

The concept that some low-level employee had an original idea and acted upon it is laughable.

Re:

[Pseudonymous Powers]

To suggest that I might not be entirely earnest in my asinine babblings is to violate the long-established social contract of internet forum sites, which is for at least 25% of readers to accept attempts at satire at their face value, and react accordingly.

Re:

[nightflameauto]

What are you babbling about?

Most employees won't fart without their manager's approval, in triplicate form, signed by the manager's manager and also confirmed by HR.

The concept that some low-level employee had an original idea and acted upon it is laughable.

OP's talking about the fact that most bosses manage to throw underlings under the bus rather than face the repercussions of their actions.

I don't think you understand

[rsilvergun]

How election years work and why Biden needs it to be an election year to do this shit.

So this is some popular ass shit. However if Biden tried this before the election year guess what would happen? That's right a long comes Republican state attorney generals to sue the fuck out of him.

Biden isn't showing off during an election year. He's leveraging the election year to get the agenda through without Republican interference. Because he knows if those state AGs Sue him it's going to go up to that incre

Re:

[taustin]

These "enforcement" actions have zero chance of going anywhere. None. But that won't be obvious to the proles before the election, and the Dems know it. It's all for show. "Look at this! We care about you indentured servants so much we're going after people you hate! Vote for us and donate money to your coffers!"

Looks good come election day, but shortly thereafter, it all gets settled quietly for a pittance of a fine (or none at all) and nothing changes.

This is cheap vote buying, something the Democrats hav

Dude if you're too cowardly to even try

[rsilvergun]

Just shut your goddamned mouth and let the rest of us get to work. You've obviously already given up so go back to whatever the fuck it was you were doing and stop posting here. You're going to die soon enough we all are and you might as well not waste any time on something you've already given up on.

Or are you just another Russian or Republican being paid to be here and post this bullshit because it might have worked in 2016 maybe even a little in 2020 but nobody's buying it anymore. Dark Brandon is kic

Re:

[DarkOx]

Look at the polls dummy; Trump is winning where it counts. The ONLY thing that will save Biden is if the Fed delivers on a rate cuts early enough business feel they can take a chance on some loss leaders again and consumers 'feel' some price relief.

There is a darn good chance to the GOP will take the senate too. The judicial filibuster is gone already - the retiring justices will be replaced with young conservatives. Progressivism will be OVER for the next 40 years!

Get used it - loser

Re:

[ISayWeOnlyToBePolite]

It's an election year, and the Democrats are desperate. Big Tech is very unpopular right now, so they're a very popular target.

But once the election is over, regardless of who wins, this will all evaporate, because Big Tech are also Big Contributors.

"The FTC has recently launched antitrust probes into Microsoft, Open AI, and Nvidia, and has taken legal action against Meta, Amazon, Google, and Apple in recent years."
The 2021 executive order https://www.whitehouse.gov/bri... [whitehouse.gov] The idea that this would be election year related is vastly overestimating government speed and efficiency.

Re:

[taustin]

That this is election year related depends on government slowness and inefficiency. That's the point. If it could be resolved before November, it would get tossed before they (because that's what's going to happen, and you know it) and they'd look stupid on election day.

Really, dude, tell your script writers to do a better job next time.

Order of operations

[JBMcB]

1. Allow every merger to go through
2. Call the excessive mergers monopolistic
3. Sue the merged companies for billions

Profit!

So they didn't have the political power

[rsilvergun]

To stop the mergers because the bubble boomers were busy with stupid ass moral panics. The bubble boomers are still busy with dumb moral panics, they're currently freaking out about drag queens and trans kids in high school sports, but there's a lot fewer of them because of how the passage of time works so the Biden administration has a bit of political power to toss around. So they're beginning to enforce antitrust law.

Keyword beginning there's a lot more to come from this.

The CPI in May was zero.

Re:

[larryjoe]

1. Allow every merger to go through
2. Call the excessive mergers monopolistic
3. Sue the merged companies for billions

Profit!

4. Win a few cases against big companies.
5. Lose the appeals from big companies.
6. Revert to previous status quo.

Since the 1982 breakup of AT&T, US anti-trust actions have been either minor or reversed. The closest was Microsoft in 2000, but that resulted in a settlement that was effectively a reversal. European actions have been relatively more impactful, but US actions in the last 40 years have been literally insignificant.

Re: Order of operations

[guruevi]

I donâ(TM)t think Khan has won any of those big cases she pursued yet, she is the worst FTC chair in history based on cases won. Wasnâ(TM)t it Google that recently told the judge it would be cheaper to just pay the highest possible fine they could leverage (~2M) than continue with the case? Thatâ(TM)s all she got going is pocket change for an agency that blows through millions every year just existing.

I will believe it when...

[alispguru]

... the FTC and/or the FCC goes after the "mob bosses" in telecom.

The big ISPs have gotten away with consumer murder for decades, and never been seriously punished for it because they bought the right Congresscritters.

Remember the last big broadband-for-everyone bill where the telecom companies got tens of billions to give people outside big cities broadband?
The one where they got the bill modified to define ADSL as "broadband" so they could just keep the $$ and do little or no infrastructure work?

Re: I will believe it when...

[drinkypoo]

And then they didn't actually even deliver THAT to many rural customers.

I still remember when Pacific Bell promised to bring "lite speed" DSL to ALL POTS customers by Y2000.

Re:

[LazarusQLong]

I had the "pleasure" of spending a long weekend in Durant, OK in 2010... there was no telephone service off of the main roads outside town. No cell service either, once you were about 3 miles outside town. Town was tiny. The people I was visiting had to drive into town to make a cell phone call.

Re:

[LazarusQLong]

yep, and the one before that that gave $5 billion to AT&T to do the same thing, but with no teeth, so no 'enforcement'. AT&T took the money and did nothing... or rather they donated a portion of it to re-election campaigns of several congressweasels.

Congress actually had AT&T write that law!

This game has been going on a long time.

trying to close the barn door after....

[SeaFox]

Ah yes, now that they have already let all the big mergers create monopolies in vital sectors, now they're gonna start scrutinizing things with a big ol' magnifying glass to make sure no mergers are happening that might be detrimental to the public and protect an active competitive landscape in tech!

Re:

[FudRucker]

its not a monopoly until it becomes a monopoly,

They need to include Big Old Tech!

[WimBo]

AT&T, Comcast, Lumen, (Qwest or whatever alias they are going by now) all should be included in the investigations to make any of this worthwhile.

Re: They need to include Big Old Tech!

[drinkypoo]

Qwest isn't going by anything now. They got bought out after the CEO refused to allow the NSA to tap their cross country backbone and they drummed up some bullshit insider trading charges against him while congress does it all day every day.

Re:

[DarkOx]

So you are saying the SEC/DOJ are wielded as weapons to attack political enemies. Got it.

Re:

[dsgrntlxmply]

Qwest were rightly prosecuted, not persecuted. Qwest fraud [sec.gov]

Re:

[DarkOx]

That they broke the law isn't the question though. The question is were they prosecuted because they pissed of the NSA or not?

This the problem with the current state of our democracy and our legal system. The latest bullshit the political left is pushing is that "Hunter got convicted so see see nobody is above the law" they claim.

They expect us to just memory hole the fact he only went to trial on the gun charges because the a judge (a Trump appointee) said what Garland (who thinks he is above congression

Are they watching ...

[PPH]

... the airports for Larry Ellison?

Do they know that he owns a number of yachts?

Really?

[andywest]

It is easier to go after suits who stick out like blisters than to go after the "lower-level offenders" who are more numerous, cause more damage to the internet, and who are so isolated from the suits at the top that they don't give a damn what happens to them. Yeah, let's go for the easy wins!

Re:

[LazarusQLong]

well, I am no fan of the suits, they have always tried to screw me over whenever I have had to deal with them, so I say, Go After the Suits!

FTC needs to go a lot farther than that.

[Eunomion]

They need to go on an antitrust rampage to return American business to anything resembling open market competition.

In related news...

[smoot123]

...sales of pinstripe suits, fedoras, pinky rings, and Lincoln continentals skyrockets in Palo Alto.

What about going after the Data Brokers

[kd3bj]

True network criminals, IMHO.