Columbia University law professor Timothy Wu testifies during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing in Washington, DC
Andrew Harrer | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Big Tech critic Tim Wu and antitrust advocate is joining the Biden government to work on technology and competition policy at the National Economic Council, he announced on Friday.
The hiring signals that the Biden government takes competition policy seriously and is likely to be welcomed by progressives hoping to see greater enforcement of antitrust laws, especially against tech giants like Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google. Wu’s writing played an important role in advancing the idea that leading technology companies should be spun off to reinvigorate competition, especially through his 2018 book, “The Curse of Bigness: Antitrust in the New Gilded Age”.
Wu has helped shape some of the most important technology debates in the past decade. He coined the term “net neutrality” to describe the idea that Internet service providers should not discriminate between different types of online communication. The Federal Communications Commission established a net neutrality rule under Obama, which was reversed in the next government, although Biden’s FCC could revive the rule again.
Wu recently taught antitrust law at Columbia University and previously worked in the New York attorney general’s office, the Federal Trade Commission and the NEC under President Barack Obama.
Biden has not yet filled the main antitrust oversight positions in his administration. His choices for the FTC’s Antitrust Division and the Department of Justice will solidify the idea that he is ready to crack down on technology companies and the concentration of power, or undermine it. News of Biden’s potential choices for these roles ran through the full range of progressives in line with Wu’s views on competition for those who worked with or advised the technology companies themselves, which critics fear would be too tolerant of them.
Improving regulation of technology companies has been a rare unifying topic among Democrats and Republicans in recent years. When House Democrats left last year with their lengthy report on alleged anti-competitive conduct from Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google, several key Republicans said they agreed with the report’s main allegations, if not the exact proposed legislative changes.
It has also been a common thread between Biden and his predecessor Donald Trump, under which the DOJ and the FTC have filed antitrust lawsuits against Google and Facebook, respectively. The Biden government is expected to continue these processes and may even expand its scope.
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