President Joe Biden announced his intention to nominate Lina Khan, a leading legal scholar and voice in the growing technology antitrust movement, to serve as a commissioner on the Federal Trade Commission.
The choice indicates that the Biden government is preparing to take on some of the most powerful and influential companies in the technology industry. In 2017, Khan wrote an article for the Yale Law Journal entitled “Amazon’s Antitrust Paradox”, which has exploded in popularity in progressive economic policy circles. Khan also served as an advisor to the House Judiciary Committee’s antitrust subcommittee throughout his years-long investigation into anti-competitive behavior in the technology industry.
Khan’s appointment follows the appointment of Tim Wu, a professor of law at Columbia University, to work on technology and competition policy at the National Economic Council. Wu coined the term “net neutrality” and has been a prominent voice on the subject of antitrust regulation against major technology companies like Amazon, Facebook and Google.
Khan’s choice for Biden to serve on the FTC comes when regulators, legislators and the courts are facing immense pressure to face Big Tech. The House Judiciary initiated the second stage of its antitrust investigation last month and is about to introduce competition legislation to control the technology this semester.
In February, the current acting FTC president, Rebecca Slaughter, made comments suggesting that the agency would take an aggressive approach to technology. Slaughter outlined his oversight priorities, including competition in the markets and algorithmic discrimination.
“[M]any of the biggest players in the digital markets is as powerful as they are because of the breadth of their access and control over consumer data, ”said Slaughter at the time.