Paying Attention to Process at the FTC
Plus a fiery panel, a misguided common carrier bill, and more
FTC: At today’s FTC Open Commission Meeting, Berin (at 6:47), Bilal (at 2:10), and Andy (at 10:55) spoke about the importance of allowing reply comments for the FTC’s proposed ban on noncompete agreements—and the hurdles in classifying these agreements as a method of competition. Read our remarks here.
Commissioner Christine Wilson (at 38:44) thanked us for bringing the idea to her attention and agreed with our request for reply comments. We’ll file the request next week. If you’re interested in joining the letter, email us at mail@techfreedom.org.
Antitrust: Bilal was a guest at the Journal of Business and Technology Law’s symposium “The People v. Tech: Balancing the Interests of Tech and Society.” He discussed a framework for understanding FTC and other regulation of competition among business technology platforms.
Last week, Berin joined a “fiery” panel at Broadband Breakfast’s Big Tech and Speech Summit. He again made the case against (five letters since Jan 2022) the broad anti-discrimination provisions in both the American Innovation and Choice Online Act and Open App Markets Act.
Common Carriage: Ari submitted written testimony regarding two Tennessee bills that would regulate all social media platforms as common carriers and limit their ability to moderate content. Our testimony reiterates that like Florida’s SB7072, these bills violate the First Amendment.
Section 230: Mike Masnick hosted Ari on the most recent TechDirt Podcast to examine the recent Senate Judiciary hearing on Section 230. Unfortunately, the desire to score a political victory over “Big Tech” has taken priority over legislating properly.
Good Governance: Reason quoted Ari on H.R.140, the Protecting Speech from Government Interference Act. Though wanting to keep the government out of speech regulation is laudable, the bill’s imprecise wording raises its own First Amendment concerns.
Open discussion at the FTC: for transparency, democracy, and better regulation.