Meta Platforms on Wednesday pressed its argument that the Federal Trade Commission’s structure, including the way it conducts in-house enforcement actions, is unconstitutional. “The commission’s dual role as prosecutor and judge … is flatly inconsistent with fundamental principles of due process,” Meta argues in papers filed with U.S. District Court Judge Randolph Moss in Washington. The company is seeking an injunction to halt an in-house proceeding that could result in an FTC order banning Meta from monetizing minors’ data.
The FTC proposed sweeping privacy changes on Wednesday that could curb how social media, game and learning apps use and monetize youngsters’ data.
Amazon is asking a federal judge to throw out Federal Trade Commission charges that the company illegally hindered competition in the “online superstore” market, to the detriment of third-party sellers that use the platform as well as consumers. In a motion filed with U.S. District Court Judge John Chun in Seattle, Amazon argues that FTC’s allegations concern “common retail practices that presumptively benefit consumers.”
Meta Platforms on Wednesday escalated its battle with the Federal Trade Commission by claiming in a new lawsuit that the agency’s structure, including its ability to conduct in-house hearings, is unconstitutional. The lawsuit — which comes as Meta and the FTC are battling over teens’ data — includes a request to prevent the agency from moving forward with a hearing that could result in an order prohibiting Meta from using teens’ data for ad targeting or algorithms.
The Federal Trade Commission is asking a federal judge to reject efforts by the Interactive Advertising Bureau and other outside groups to weigh in on Amazon’s side in a dispute over its alleged use of “dark patterns.” The Interactive Advertising Bureau last month argued in a proposed friend-of-the-court brief that the FTC’s allegations against Amazon amounted to an attempt “to regulate and punish truthful statements made in advertising.”
Amazon founder-owner Jeff Bezos instructed executives to flood the giant ecommerce company’s search results with irrelevant ads to pump up its profits, The Federal Trade Commission charges in newly unredacted documents from its antitrust lawsuit against Amazon. During a key meeting, Bezos directed executives to “accept ‘more defects’ as a way to increase the total number of advertisements shown and drive up Amazon’s advertising profits,” the FTC document charges.
Exclusives
The Federal Trade Commission’s proposed regulations aimed at curbing fake reviews could violate the First Amendment by chilling legitimate commercial speech, advertisers told the agency Friday. Instead of issuing regulations, the FTC should continue to issue guidance and case-by-case prosecutions against companies that attempt to dupe consumers with fake reviews, the Association of National Advertisers argues.
The chair of the Federal Trade Commission wants to disrupt Amazon, whose founder, Jeff Bezos, built a trillion-dollar firm by disrupting retail.
The Federal Trade Commission and a bipartisan coalition of 17 state attorneys general sued Amazon over violations of anticompetitive behavior on Tuesday, building on the government’s crackdown on the market power of powerful tech companies. The lawsuit targeting Amazon is twofold — alleging the e-commerce giant’s practices are anticompetitive in how it serves shoppers as well as third-party sellers on the site, according to an FTC announcement.
A long-awaited antitrust case against Amazon’s massive online retail operations is expected to be filed in federal court as soon as Tuesday, according to three people with knowledge of the matter. The Federal Trade Commission has been preparing a complaint since at least the start of this year targeting an array of Amazon’s business practices. The exact details of the lawsuit are not known, and changes to the final complaint are possible until it’s officially submitted. But personnel throughout the agency, including FTC Chair Lina Khan herself, have homed in on several of Amazon’s business practices.
Online influencers, game makers and others who post online ads aimed at children should deploy formatting techniques that clearly clearly separate the ads from surrounding content, the Federal Trade Commission advises in a new staff report. “The best way to prevent harms stemming from blurred advertising is to not blur advertising,” the agency writes in the report, “Protecting Kids from Stealth Advertising in Digital Media.”
Since Lina Khan became Federal Trade Commission chair in 2021, she’s challenged Meta, Microsoft, and Amazon, and that’s made her a lightning rod for controversy. WSJ breaks down the battles she’s picked and why she’s willing to lose.
Microsoft Corp.’s success fighting the Federal Trade Commission’s challenge to its $69 billion Activision Blizzard Inc. acquisition could ease the path to more deals at a time when Wall Street has been confronting a severe merger drought. Stiffer enforcement by the FTC and Justice Department under the Biden administration has deterred a number of deals in recent years, but those regulators’ losing record in the courtroom will likely weaken that effect, experts say.
The proposed road map for regulatory reviews, last updated in 2020, includes a focus on tech platforms for the first time. Pictured: Jonathan Kanter, who leads the Justice Department’s antitrust division, and Lina Khan, chair of the Federal Trade Commission, at a Senate hearing last September. (Graeme Sloan/Sipa, via Associated Press)
Lina Khan has said a fear of defeat should not deter the agency from suing big tech companies. But after Microsoft won a ruling this week, her critics say that strategy is flawed.
Microsoft also said it was negotiating changes to the deal to satisfy objections made by a British regulator, which could allow it to complete its purchase of the video game giant as soon as this month.
President Joe Biden announced his intent to nominate Andrew Ferguson and Melissa Holyoak to fill the two open Republican seats on the Federal Trade Commission, the White House said Monday. Ferguson is solicitor general for the Commonwealth of Virginia and previously served as chief counsel to Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnel of Kentucky. Holyoak is the solicitor general for Utah, where she oversees the state’s merger reviews and antitrust enforcement. She previously was general counsel for the Hamilton Lincoln Law institute, a conservative nonprofit public interest law firm.
The agency is expected to focus on Amazon’s online marketplace. Khan is deemed unlikely to accept any tweaks to the business.
The Association of National Advertisers is weighing in against several of the Federal Trade Commission’s proposed “click to cancel” regulations, arguing that they “would hinder innovation and the free flow of commerce without providing commensurate benefits or protections to consumers.” The group says in a written filing that some of the proposed regulations “would create consumer frustration and unnecessary burdens,” are “out-of-step with the ways businesses and consumers interact,” and “would impose excessive restrictions on sellers’ ability to communicate with their customer base.”
The Federal Trade Commission has proposed making it easier for consumers to cancel online subscriptions they no longer want — including to streaming services — with civil penalties for companies that violate the new rules.
In a complaint filed in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington, the agency accused Amazon of using deceptive designs, known as “dark patterns,” to deceive consumers into enrolling in Prime, which provides subscribers with perks such as faster shipping for an fee of $139 annually, or $14.99 a month.
Melissa Holyoak, solicitor general of Utah and a longtime litigator, is poised to be nominated for a seat on the Federal Trade Commission as soon as this week. U.S. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has submitted Holyoak’s name as a potential commissioner for the FTC to the White House — and is expected to formally nominate her in a matter of days, according to multiple sources close to the situation.
The Federal Trade Commission plans to seek an emergency court order that would block Microsoft from closing its $75 billion deal for Activision Blizzard, according to a person familiar with the matter. The FTC plans to file Monday for a temporary restraining order in federal court that would halt the companies from imminently clinching the deal, the person said. A judge would need to agree to issue the time-limited order; there is no guarantee when or if the agency will file for the request.
The federal children’s privacy law doesn’t prevent parents from suing YouTube for allegedly violating California laws by tracking young children, the Federal Trade Commission is telling an appeals court. The federal Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act overrides claims rooted in inconsistent state laws, but doesn’t override state-law claims that parallel the federal law, the agency wrote in a friend-of-the-court brief filed over the weekend with the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.
Heavy hitters from both sides of the Standard General/Tegna merger debate, including former Democratic FCC and FTC chairs, met with the FCC’s Republican commissioners last week as the companies attempted to get the FCC to give them a thumbs up or thumbs down on the deal ASAP.
Meta Platforms violated prior privacy settlements, and as a result should be prohibited from monetizing minors’ data, including the use of it to fuel ad targeting or algorithms, the Federal Trade Commission said Wednesday. “Facebook has repeatedly violated its privacy promises,” Samuel Levine, director of the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection, said. “The company’s recklessness has put young users at risk, and Facebook needs to answer for its failures.”
The Federal Trade Commission on Thursday announced a proposal to change its rules to include a provision that would make it easier for consumers to cancel recurring subscription services. And while streaming services clearly fall into that category, one analyst doesn’t anticipate a rule change would have much impact on major SVODs. The main reason, TVREV’s Alan Wolk said, is that SVODs already make it fairly easy to cancel.
A multi-pronged investigation of the online giant is approaching the action phase — on mergers, antitrust, privacy and more.
The federal government should “enforce aggressively” a prior order requiring Twitter to take steps to ensure users’ privacy and the security of their data, the advocacy group Public Citizen urges. “The available evidence suggests that, under new ownership, the company may be increasingly cavalier about its users and its legal obligations,” Public Citizen writes in a letter sent this week to Federal Trade Commission Chair Lina Khan and U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland. “Both to protect the interests of millions of Twitter users and to uphold the integrity of the FTC, we urge you to urgently investigate Twitter’s adherence to the consent decree and to enforce aggressively the terms of the consent decree without delay.”
House Oversight Committee Members Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) and Nancy Mace (R-S.C.) have committed to schedule hearings in the coming months to investigate whether FTC Chair Lina Khan has been following the law, according to sources close to the situation.
The NAB contends that the proposed ban on noncompete agreements is far-reaching and oversteps the FTC’s jurisdiction. Broadcasting presents a unique case for reasonable noncompete clauses due to the substantial investments broadcasters make in promoting on-air talent.
Ad industry groups are urging the Federal Trade Commission to reject a law professor’s request to regulate online programmatic advertising in ways that could restrict companies’ ability to serve ads to people based on their activity across sites.
Republican Federal Trade Commissioner Christine Wilson announced on Tuesday that she plans to resign, due to Chair Lina Khan’s alleged “disregard for the rule of law.” She added: “I have failed repeatedly to persuade Ms. Khan and her enablers to do the right thing, and I refuse to give their endeavor any further hint of legitimacy by remaining.”
The Federal Trade Commission is preparing a potential antitrust lawsuit against Amazon Inc. that in the coming months could challenge an array of the tech giant’s business practices as anticompetitive, according to people familiar with the matter. The timing of any case remains in flux, some of the people said. The commission also could opt not to proceed, and doesn’t always bring cases even when it is making preparations to do so.
The Federal Trade Commission on Thursday rolled out a proposal to prohibit employers from implementing noncompete clauses that limit workers’ ability to change jobs. Noncompetes, which are used in a broad range of industries, make it difficult for employees to work for a competitor or start their own business for a period of time after they leave employment.
Alvaro Bedoya, confirmed in May, is the newest member of the five-person body running the agency. Known in D.C. tech policy circles as a leading consumer digital rights advocate, he was an influential Senate staffer and most recently founded and ran Georgetown Law School’s Center on Privacy and Technology, working to shine a light on how technology can negatively impact society’s most vulnerable.
The Federal Trade Commission reached the settlements to resolve two cases against Epic Games Inc., which has parlayed Fortnite’s success in the past five years to become a video game powerhouse. The $520 million covered in the settlement consists of $245 million in customer refunds and a $275 million fine for collecting personal information on Fortnite players under the age of 13 without informing their parents or getting their consent. It’s the biggest penalty ever imposed for breaking an FTC rule.
Facebook parent Meta is sparring with the U.S. Federal Trade Commission in federal court over its pending acquisition of a virtual reality fitness company Within Unlimited.
Khan, the chair of the Federal Trade Commission, has staked an ambitious trustbusting agenda on a case that may be difficult to win.
The lawsuit marks Lina Khan’s most significant effort to date to address tech industry consolidation, and it could upend Microsoft’s gaming ambitions.
