Slaughter Wants More FTC Antitrust Action, Calls State Probes 'Force Multipliers'
FTC Commissioner Rebecca Kelly Slaughter welcomed state antitrust probes of Facebook and Google, during a Thursday Media Institute event. She also reinforced her opposition to the commission's recent settlements with the two tech giants on privacy issues. Slaughter and fellow Democratic Commissioner Rohit Chopra voted against the settlements (see 1907240042 and 1909040066). Slaughter broadly encouraged the FTC to do more on tech sector antitrust, stopping short of supporting a proposal by 2020 Democratic presidential hopeful Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts to break up big tech companies (see 1904170046).
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Slaughter didn't say what direction the state investigations should take but called them “force multipliers” that can build on “limited federal resources” to examine tech giants. “Sometimes that means re-looking at things that [the FTC has] done” and “sometimes that means working independently” of the federal government, Slaughter said. Enforcers in 50 states and jurisdictions are investigating Google’s advertising business for antitrust violations (see 1909090060). Attorneys general for nine states and Washington, D.C., are probing Facebook (see 1909060016).
Slaughter bemoaned restrictions on her ability to talk about ongoing investigations like the FTC's Facebook antitrust probe (see 1907250049). Officials leading the states' probes have more flexibility to discuss their cases before they reach a final outcome and “it could be good for the FTC” to have that ability as EU agencies do, she said. That “could help us get information from potential witnesses” or “send important market signals.” There's also validity to concerns discussion of ongoing FTC cases could have a “chilling effect,” Slaughter said.
The FTC “should be thinking really, really hard about the different kinds of concentration” and “anticompetitive conduct” within the tech sector, Slaughter said. “I'm personally really concerned about the way the shift to digital has affected the media broadly” and “what it means for the future of journalism.” Those are issues the FTC should investigate “really carefully,” she said. Enforcers "need to do fact-based investigations and develop theories and cases that we can defend in a court of law.”
The commission should have given more weight to the “intrinsic value” of pursuing litigation against Facebook over its violations of a 2012 consent order by deceiving users about control they have over their data, Slaughter said. Pursuing a trial against Facebook “could have provided some” of the discipline of the company that was lacking in the settlement. She faulted unnecessarily releasing executives from liability, saying the investigation didn't justify that. Slaughter criticized the commission's settlement with Google over allegations YouTube illegally collected personal data from children without parental consent, saying it won't effectively discourage others from similar actions.
Slaughter wouldn't say what Congress should include in a final privacy bill. She noted the FTC's longstanding request for lawmakers to improve enforcement authority. Congress should in part “get rid of some of the antiquated” carve-outs limiting the FTC's authority, including the common-carrier exemption, she said. “To the extent we want to” have “consistent application” of FTC handling of privacy issues, “those exemptions are not particularly useful.”