US President Joe Biden speaks during International Women’s Day in the Eastern House of the White House in Washington, DC, on March 8, 2021.
Mandel Ngan | AFP | Getty Images
Almost two months after the presidency, it finally becomes clear how Joe Biden intends to approach the technology sector. And it looks very different from the Obama administration’s approach.
The selection of two major critics of Big Tech companies, Lina Khan and Tim Wu, for key roles in the administration seems to signal that Biden is serious about giants such as Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google. The last two of these companies are already facing federal antitrust lawsuits filed under the previous administration.
Biden’s reported selection of Khan as a nominee to the Federal Trade Commission leaves little doubt that the administration hopes to see robust enforcement of antitrust laws and other technology regulations. Politico reported on Tuesday that this week’s administration was in the late stages of verifying the candidate, 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 for the Chamber’s Judicial Subcommittee on Antitrust, helping to compile the nearly 450-page report accusing the four tech giants of maintaining their power. monopoly and suggesting a major overhaul of antitrust laws and their enforcement.
Khan, 32, gained prominence on the antitrust scholarship after writing “Amazon’s Antitrust Paradox” as a law student at Yale University in 2017, in which he advocated a broader understanding of how U.S. antitrust laws could be applied to a company like Amazon. While the courts have for years relied on the much-debated “consumer welfare” standard to assess whether an antitrust infringement (often related to the price of consumer goods and services) has occurred, Khan has argued that the standard does not is well equipped to assess the potential damage caused by online platforms.
Khan wrote that prey prices could be unique in the interest of platforms, as they are often rewarded for pursuing growth rather than profit. From the outside, this could seem to benefit consumers by lowering prices, although it would undermine legitimate competitors who could be eliminated from the market. She also argued that the platforms can control the “essential infrastructure” on which competitors depend, allowing the platforms to exploit information against rivals.
In addition to Khan’s expected nomination, the administration announced last week that Columbia University law professor Tim Wu will join the National Economic Council to work on technology and competition policy. Wu helped popularize the idea that major technology companies should be split to revive competition with his 2018 book, “The Curse of Bigness: Antitrust in the New Gilded Age.” He also coined the term “net neutrality”, which eventually sparked a major debate over whether internet service providers should be able to slow down or speed up internet services.
Prior to the unveiling of these two options, technology critics had been cautious about how Biden would eventually select its top authorities. Progressive groups have warned the administration not to select employees or nominees with Big Tech links, including former Google CEO Eric Schmidt, who was rumored to be in an administrative role.
The fear also came from the Obama administration’s reputation as a technology-friendly White House, which also failed to introduce major enforcement actions against the technology giants. Even so, many expected Biden’s approach to differ, only if public sentiment towards the technology sector has fluctuated sharply since 2016.
To be sure, Biden must continue to hold the top antitrust position in the Justice Department and the fifth vacant spot on the FTC, assuming his candidacy for the Office of Consumer Financial Protection, which is the current FTC commissioner, is confirmed. But selecting Khan and Wu for key roles seems to send a strong signal to both progressives and Big Tech companies that the administration will not return from strong application.
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SEE: How US antitrust law works and what it means for Big Tech