Biden taps tech antitrust advocate Lina Khan for FTC, in yet another bad omen for Silicon Valley

President Joe Biden on Monday picked prominent tech industry critic Lina Khan to join the Federal Trade Commission, in the latest sign he may heed the demands of progressive Democrats who want a crackdown on antitrust and privacy abuses in Silicon Valley.

The long-expected nomination — two weeks after POLITICO reported that Biden had chosen Khan — immediately drew praise from an unlikely collection of tech detractors, including Senate antitrust subcommittee Chair Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) and right-wing gadfly Mike Cernovich.

"We need all hands on deck as we work to take on some of the biggest monopolies in the world, and President Biden is making his commitment to competition policy clear," Klobuchar said in a statement.

But NetChoice, a tech trade group whose members include Amazon, Facebook, Google and Yahoo, condemned her as "a radical pick."

"Ms. Khan would move the FTC away from its role as an impartial body that enforces the law toward becoming a tool for progressive activists to change the law,” said Carl Szabo, the group's general counsel.

Key context: Khan will be the one of three Democratic commissioners at the FTC, which oversees privacy, data security and some antitrust enforcement, at a time when the agency has faced sharp criticism for not doing enough to police major tech firms like Google and Facebook over their privacy practices and past mergers.

Both Republicans and Democrats have criticized the agency's 2013 decision to close an antitrust probe into the search giant. That decision got new attention in the past week after POLITCO reported on hundreds of pages of previously unreleased documents detailing the commission's reluctance to sue Google despite evidence of its growing domination of markets including mobile search.

Biden still needs to fill the FTC's remaining Democratic slot, which will play a crucial role in deciding the agency's approach to the tech industry.

Khan’s bona fides: A professor at Columbia Law School since last year, Khan served as an aide to a recent House Judiciary antitrust subcommittee probe of antitrust and major tech platforms, among them Amazon, Apple, Google and Facebook. As part of the 16-month investigation, Khan homed in on Google’s conduct in the online search market, including its control over apps through its Android smartphone operating system, mapping through the popular Google Maps and Waze products, and digital advertising.

Before her tenure with the antitrust panel, she was a fellow at the FTC for Democratic Commissioner Rohit Chopra, whom she joined in arguing for rules that would more clearly spell out when companies violate competition law.

She also worked as director of legal policy at the anti-monopoly group Open Markets Institute.

Antitrust progressives in Biden world: Earlier this month, Biden named Tim Wu, a Columbia Law colleague of Khan's, to the White House National Economics Council, where he will focus on technology and competition. Both Khan and Wu are well-known in progressive circles and considered the architects of the so-called New Brandeis movement, which emphasizes antitrust and other competition policy issues as a democratic check on corporate power. (Republicans have mockingly dubbed that movement "hipster antitrust.")

Others in the FTC's orbit are also expressing a new willingness to ramp up antitrust scrutiny in the tech world.

At a House hearing Thursday, FTC acting Chair Rebecca Kelly Slaughter expressed some regret over the agency's earlier decision on Google and called on Congress to update the antitrust laws to make it easier for enforcers to bring suit.

On Monday, Slaughter was quick to issue a statement urging "a speedy confirmation" for Khan.

"Her creative energy, groundbreaking antitrust work, and passion for the FTC’s mission make her an excellent nominee," she said.