NHMC Files Comments on Competition and Consumer Protection in the 21st Century
On August 20, 2018, the National Hispanic Media Coalition, along with 18MillionRising.org, Color of Change, and others, submitted public comments to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) ahead of the public hearings on competition and consumer protection in the 21st century. These comments will aid the FTC in evaluating their law enforcement and policy agenda. Of the eleven topics that organizations were asked to provide input, the filing refers to competition and consumer protection issues in communication, information, and media technology networks, the intersection between privacy, big data, and competition, and the agency’s investigation, enforcement, and remedial processes.
Click here to review the filing. Key points are as follows:
- Tech giants have become unwieldy in size and influence, and consumers effectively cannot avoid interacting with them.
- Tech giants have repeatedly failed to protect and respect internet users’ data, precipitating a multitude of consumer harms.
- Many of the practices of tech giants are harmful to society as a whole, and consumers are calling for change.
- The FTC can and should do more to address harms perpetrated by the actions of tech giants.
Hearings on competition and consumer protection in the 21st century will consist of 15–20 sessions that will take place between September 2018 and January 2019. A dedicated website to the hearings can be found here.
