Ramirez, Leibowitz Pursue Similar FTC Agendas, With Different Management Styles

While former officials said these were simply two different, yet equally effective, approaches to running the FTC, some worried about a lack of coherent direction. Given Ramirez’s more taciturn nature, some observers have gravitated to commissioners Julie Brill and Maureen Ohlhausen as the more visible, public faces of the FTC. A commission spokesman declined to comment for this story.

“You can’t imagine a more different person than Jon Leibowitz,” Paul Ohm said of Ramirez. Ohm is a data privacy professor at the University of Colorado Law School who worked directly with both commission leaders as a senior policy adviser. He speaks highly of both. “[Leibowitz’s] meetings were marked by the way they grew and expanded both in time and membership every minute,” he said, describing nearly two dozen people sprawled over couches and around a large table at a typical meeting. A “crazy social cacophony,” he said. “We spent a lot of time in his office around his big table,” said Joni Lupovitz, Leibowitz’s chief of staff during his time as chairman. Now vice president-policy at Common Sense Media, she said that “he is high energy, really smart, likes to talk to a lot of people, hear a lot of views.”

“Edith, on the other hand, a meeting will not go a minute longer than it needs to,” said Ohm. Ramirez still hears myriad views, though, he said. Ohm was “shocked” by the number of people who were willing to fly in to Washington “to only get 13 minutes with Edith.” That is not a criticism, he said. “That’s all she needs.”

Ramirez has spread her effective management style throughout the commission with her senior staff appointments, said Marc Groman, CEO of the third-party digital advertising group Network Advertising Initiative (NAI). Groman, who spent roughly a decade at the FTC, worked there during Leibowitz’s five years as a commissioner. He thinks both Leibowitz and Ramirez have been strong FTC heads. Even though Ramirez is “more reserved” than her predecessor, Groman said, “the chairwoman really does set the tone in a number of ways.” He praised the appointments of Consumer Protection Bureau Director Jessica Rich, Chief of Staff to the Chairwoman Heather Hippsley and Executive Director David Robbins, who have established the commission’s demeanor, he said.

Both Ex-Commissioners

Though they have different personalities, both chairs were regular commissioners before ascending to the top spot. But Ramirez, unlike Leibowitz, was replacing a fellow Democrat, Groman said, “so you may not expect to see as dramatic a shift” in priorities.

Ramirez assumed the FTC’s top spot in March 2013, roughly a year after the commission issued its major 2012 privacy report, which focused on privacy by design, informed consent for data collection and the expanding mobile space (http://1.usa.gov/1stsamn). FTC officials frequently cite the report, which former officials said remains the basis for the agency's agenda.

A few view the policy continuation as a lack of vision or direction, saying the agency needs a stronger chair than Ramirez appears.

Ramirez “sticks to her constituency,” said an ex-staffer, citing speeches given to the American Bar Association (http://1.usa.gov/1ti2Di4) and various antitrust groups (http://1.usa.gov/1vbTisb; http://1.usa.gov/1sla7i5). Before joining the FTC, Ramirez was an intellectual property and antitrust attorney. Ohm said many of his colleagues see Ramirez as a “presence in privacy." Ramirez’s Aspen, Colorado, big data speech in August 2013 (http://1.usa.gov/1yhjFhH) “spurred a lot of commentary in my world,” he said.

Frequent Public Speakers

Brill and Ohlhausen have been very visible as commissioners, former staffers said. The two have engaged the public through social media, such as Twitter and Reddit chats, that other commissioners haven’t used. “Everybody seems to react to Commissioner Brill” as a face of the FTC, said a former official there. She “projects an open mind” and is “very effective [at] using the bully pulpit,” the official said. A review of the each commissioner’s public speeches on the FTC website shows Brill has spoken the most frequently of any commissioner in 2014. While asking her a question at a recent U.S. Chamber of Commerce event, NetChoice Policy Counsel Carl Szabo thanked her for being willing to “go into the lion’s den” of the right-leaning organization. “I find lions cute,” Brill joked in response.

Numerous observers agreed that Brill, a Democrat, is the staunchest privacy advocate among the commissioners. She has pushed her Reclaim Your Name initiative (see 1312200047), filed a separate comment with the commission’s big data report arguing Congress should go farther than the report recommended and has been a vocal proponent of maintaining notice and consent in the big data world. “She’s a huge name internationally and nationally in privacy,” Ohm said. “She’s creative, always looking for what’s around the corner.”

Ohlhausen, a Republican, has been the second most frequent speaker in 2014, according a count of her online-posted speeches. One former agency staffer sees Ohlhausen as “the intellectual and practical center of the FTC.” Ohlhausen has a “judicial temperament, which is important to the institution,” said the former official, who during that ex-official's 17-year tenure at the FTC overlapped with Ohlhausen but did not work for her. Former Leibowitz chief of staff Lupovitz said that “the FTC has a long tradition of collegiality and consensus building.” The former agency staffer said Ohlhausen is critical to that consensus, serving a counterpoint to Brill: “She has a different perspective on the role of government than Julie Brill.”

Ohlhausen is willing to speak on a wide variety of issues, observers said. Her 2014 speeches have spanned topics from big data, to antitrust, to advertising, to the Internet of Things. “She’s interested in competition, the effects of regulation and unintended consequences,” Groman said. “She’s been trying to sort of play that role of exploring really the boundaries of the FTC Act and the kind of harms the FTC should be addressing -- but not in a reactionary way at all.”

Wright Dissents

Commissioner Josh Wright remains more divisive than Brill, Ohlhausen and Ramirez, based on interviews with observers. Wright is by far the most frequent dissenter to FTC actions -- six times since his January 2013 swearing in -- often citing an insufficient cost-benefit analysis in the FTC’s decision-making process. “I regard him as a fairly traditional libertarian and a very aggressive one at that,” Ohm said. “He’s not the first [the FTC] has ever seen.”

Organizations like TechFreedom and lawyers lauded Wright’s focus on what they see as the FTC’s refusal to quantify harm in economic terms. Others think his contrarian nature hurts the FTC.

Commissioner Terrell McSweeny, sworn in April 29, is the wild card, observers said. Lupovitz said McSweeny will “need a little runway time,” just like any new commissioner. Others said her connections to the Justice Department and White House -- where she has worked -- will benefit her tenure. Lupovitz recalled that McSweeny expressed an interest in children’s privacy during her confirmation hearing. McSweeny made her biggest public appearance for the FTC in July, testifying on mobile cramming before the Senate Commerce Committee.

Combined, the group is perhaps younger than past slates of commissioners, but certainly not lacking in experience, former FTC officials said. “You don’t see a lot of personalization of differences,” Ohm said. “I think the differences tend to be very much on the merits.”