Senate Hearing on FTC Nominations: Restarting the Conversation about Rethinking the FTC

On February 14, the Senate Commerce Committee will hold hearings on four (and possibly five) nominations to the Federal Trade Commission. The FTC, the nation’s premiere consumer protection and competition agency, has been in a kind of limbo for the last year, operating with just two (of five) Commissioners for the first time since it was created in 1913.

TechFreedom will be hosting a blog symposium here over the next two weeks about the FTC’s growing importance as America’s de facto technology regulator. When the agency turned 100 back in 2013, we dubbed it the “Federal Technology Commission” — and the name has stuck. Even Chairman Ramirez, who stepped down a year ago, embraced it. Anyone who follows tech policy should understand by now that, for all the talk of creating new special purpose agencies (say, a “Federal Robotics Commission” or a “Federal Search Commission”), it’s the FTC that actually handles most technology policy issues.

We’ll be particularly focused on the February 14 hearing:

• What questions should Senators ask?
• What should the next FCC Chairman do once he takes over the Commission?
• What should be the role of the other four Commissioners?
• What lessons can we draw from the FTC’s first century about its second century?
• How should Congress think about tweaking the FTC Act, given that the last major reforms were made in 1994, predating the Internet?
• Are there particular issues where the FTC needs specific statutory guidance, e.g., data security, privacy and net neutrality?
• And most of all, what should we make of the FTC’s “common law of consent decrees” — the 200+ settlements by which the FTC has effectively regulated privacy, data security, and other high tech issues, like product design, without the kind of judicial review that has guided the FTC’s traditional enforcement work in advertising and antitrust?

We won’t speak with one voice. We’re inviting other FTC experts to share their own thoughts on how to make the FTC more effective in serving consumers across the board, including:

• Wielding its broad authority over “unfair and deceptive practices;”
• Enforcing the antitrust laws (and the FTC’s somewhat broader “unfair methods of competition” authority);
• Applying specific statutory authority Congress has given the Commission over issues like children’s online privacy, credit reporting, and more;
• Advocating on behalf of consumers against anti-competitive state and local government practices;
• Studying emerging issues and making recommendations to Congress about how to deal with them (President Wilson’s original vision for the agency); and
• Evolving the nation’s oldest, and most venerable consumer protection institution into one that can handle the challenges of the 21st century.