Lina Khan’s nomination hearing signals a new era of tough antitrust enforcement for the tech industry

Lina Khan’s unconventional ideas to take on tech companies’ power were decried as “hipster antitrust” by conservatives when her academic paper about Amazon went practically viral just a few years ago. But with anti-Silicon Valley sentiment mounting on both sides of the aisle in Congress, President Biden’s nominee to serve on the Federal Trade Commission received a relatively warm reception from senators as they weighed her nomination to become the youngest-ever commissioner of that body. Khan, a law professor and former FTC staffer, signaled in her testimony that she would bring an aggressive approach to regulating tech giants. That would mark a major reversal from the Obama era, when the agency took a largely hands-off approach to big mergers and acquisitions in the tech sector. Khan told senators in the last few years, new evidence has come to light showing there were “missed opportunities” for enforcement actions under the last Democratic administration. She said new findings show the FTC must be “much more vigilant” when it comes to large acquisitions in digital markets. Khan also argued she was particularly concerned about the ways in which large companies use their dominance in one market to give them an upper hand in others, an issue under intense scrutiny by Congress.