U.S. President Joe Biden speaks during International Women’s Day in the East Room of the White House in Washington, DC, on March 8, 2021.
Mandel Ngan | AFP | Getty Images
Nearly two months into his presidency, it is finally clear how Joe Biden plans to address the technology sector. And it seems very different from the Obama administration’s approach.
The selection of two big critics from Big Tech companies, Lina Khan and Tim Wu, for key roles in the administration seems to indicate that Biden is seriously concerned about looking at giants like Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google. The last two of these companies are already facing federal antitrust lawsuits filed under the previous administration.
The selection reported by Biden de Khan as a candidate for the Federal Trade Commission leaves little room for doubt that the administration expects to see robust enforcement of antitrust laws and other regulations in the technology space. Politico reported on Tuesday that this week’s administration was in the final stages of the candidate’s review, citing sources. A White House spokesman did not immediately respond to CNBC’s request for comment on the report.
Prior to taking on his current role as a law student at Columbia University, Khan worked on the antitrust judicial subcommittee of the Judiciary, helping to compile the nearly 450-page report accusing the four tech giants. of maintaining the power of the monopoly and suggesting a major revision of its enforcement laws.
Khan, 32, gained prominence in the antitrust scholarship after writing “Amazon’s Antitrust Paradox” as a law student at Yale University in 2017, advocating for a broader understanding of how antitrust laws could be enforced. to a company like Amazon. Although courts have for years often relied on the much-discussed “consumer welfare” standard to assess whether an antitrust violation (often linked to the price of consumer goods and services) has occurred, Khan argued that the rule it is not well equipped to assess potential damage from online platforms.
Khan wrote that predatory prices could be exclusively in the interest of platforms because they are often rewarded for pursuing growth rather than profits. From the outside, this might seem beneficial to consumers by lowering prices, although it would reduce competition to legitimate ones that could be left out of the market. He also argued that platforms can control the “essential infrastructure” on which competitors depend, allowing platforms to exploit information against rivals.
In addition to Khan’s long-awaited nomination, the administration announced last week that Columbia University law professor Tim Wu would join the National Economic Council to work on technology and competition policy. Wu helped popularize the idea that big tech companies may have to break through to reinvigorate competition through his 2018 book, “The Curse of Bigness: Antitrust in the New Gilded Age”. He also coined the term “net neutrality,” which eventually ignited a major debate about whether Internet service providers should have the ability to slow down or speed up Internet services.
Prior to the revelation of these two options, technology critics had been skeptical of how Biden would select its top tech executives. Progressive groups warned the administration not to select staff or nominees with Big Tech links, including former Google CEO Eric Schmidt, who was rumored to be being discussed for an administration role.
The fear also came from the Obama administration’s reputation as a pro-technology White House that also failed to attempt major enforcement actions against the tech giants. Still, many expected Biden’s approach to be likely to be different, if only because public sentiment toward the tech sector has fluctuated dramatically since 2016.
By the way, Biden has yet to fulfill the Department of Justice’s most important antitrust role and the FTC’s fifth vacant seat, assuming his candidacy for the Office of Consumer Financial Protection, which is the FTC’s current commissioner, is confirmed. . But the selection of Khan and Wu for key roles seems to send a strong signal to both progressives and Big Tech companies that the administration will not back down from a strong application.
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SEE: How U.S. antitrust law works and what it means for Big Tech