FTC’s Lina Khan taking on Big Business

by
Bill Haskell
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Commentary by Robert Reich popped up today in my mailbox. It is interesting to read. Apparently, Joe Biden’s appointment to the FTC is taking on corporate entities who have great influence in their portion of the economy. Or what Angry Bear and myself would call big business monopolies. The courts agreed with FTC’s Lina Khan, that Google is a monopoly. This occurrence you can read for yourself below.

It was suggested big money donners to Democrat’s campaigns were withholding funds to Biden’s presidential campaign. Donators, withholding $millions in funding as leverage to force Biden out as a presidential candidate. This because Biden stumbled in a debate with trump who was making up lies as he went along.

Google is a monopolist. Not sure if Google was supporting Biden or trump. The federal courts agreed with Kina Kahn. Additional, FTC’s Lina Khan is (or has been) taking (taken) on Amazon and Meta also.

The U.S. government accused Google of illegally cementing its dominance in search, partly by paying other companies like Apple and Samsung billions of dollars a year to have Google automatically handle search queries on their smartphones and web browsers.

Federal Judge Mehta agreed with the findings, ruling

“Google is a monopolist, and it has acted as one to maintain its monopoly.”

The ruling is a bombshell and it will affect all other government antitrust lawsuits against Big Tech. There are many more that have been initiated by the Biden-Harris administration.

Another lawsuit underway is with Amazon. Last September, the FTC sued Amazon alleging it uses a set of interlocking anticompetitive and unfair strategies to maintain its monopoly power. The FTC claims Amazon stopped rivals and sellers from lowering prices, overcharged sellers, and stifled innovation.

The FTC is also suing Meta, accusing it of creating a monopoly in social media by buying potential competitors Instagram and WhatsApp. The FTC is challenging Microsoft’s $69 billion acquisition of gaming company Activision Blizzard and also investigating Microsoft’s investment in OpenAI. The FTC has reportedly opened multiple investigations involving subsidiaries of Barry Diller’s AIC.

The chair of the FTC is Lina Khan has been very busy. Perhaps the most busy and effective FTC chair since Michael Pertschuk ran the agency in the late 1970s. (Full disclosure: I ran the policy staff at the FTC under Pertschuk.)

Khan’s FTC shares antitrust jurisdiction with the Antitrust Division of the Justice Department, which brought the suit against Google. As part of the Justice Department, the assistant attorney general in charge of the Antitrust Division, Jonathan Kanter, is shielded from the wrath of Big Tech.

So, billionaire Democratic donors appear to be targeting Khan — and doing so publicly.

It’s rare for major donors to make the quid pro quo’s they want for their donations known publicly instead of doing so quietly through campaign bigwigs and senior White House staff.

Reid Hoffman, the billionaire co-founder of LinkedIn, who has so far donated $7 million to the leading pro-Biden and Harris super PAC, spoke to CNN about his concerns about Khan. He said that if Harris wins in November, she should replace Khan:

“Lina Khan is … a person who is not helping America. I would hope that Vice President Harris would replace her.” (He later clarified that he would support Harris regardless of whether she replaces Khan.)

Why is Hoffman so negative about Khan? Presumably because Hoffman sits on the Microsoft board of directors.

Another billionaire Democratic mega-donor, Barry Diller, chairman of AIC and Expedia, announced he would “donate the maximum” to the Harris campaign.

But Diller is openly urging Harris to remove Khan. Diller charges that Khan is against “almost anything” business wants to do to grow efficiently. Asked if he would join others in lobbying Harris to replace Khan, he said,

“Yeah, I would. I think she’s a dope.” (He later apologized for calling Khan a dope, but not for critiquing her policies.)

Diller is upset with Khan because she’s investigating several AIC subsidiaries.

All this provides a surprising opportunity for Kamala because it’s all out in the open — Hoffman’s and Diller’s donations, their requests that Harris get rid of Khan, and their personal financial interests in her doing so.

Here’s what I recommend Harris do: Openly tell Hoffman and Diller she thinks Khan is doing a great job and wants her to stay at the FTC — and if they don’t like it, they can keep their money.

Maybe Harris can find a way to fit this message into her acceptance of the nomination at the Democratic National Convention:

“I’m not going to allow Big Tech to dictate public policy! No more big money in politics!”

With this one gesture, Harris would shut the door to billionaire quid pro quos and demonstrate her independence from Big Tech’s big money.

Can Harris afford to do this? I think so, especially given her surge of support from small donors. If she did this, I suspect her small-donor support would explode even more.

It would also be good for America if Harris shut this door. Big money, especially from Big Tech, is the second-biggest threat to American democracy — after Donald Trump.

Kamala’s surprise opportunity, Robert Reich