More bad news for big tech companies facing potential antitrust actions by legislators and regulators.
Axios reports that antitrust veteran Jonathan Kanter has been nominated by the Biden administration "to lead the Department of Justice's antitrust section as it pursues a raft of cases against tech giants."
According to the story, "The nomination completes a trifecta of wins for Democrats who want to see the standards for holding tech companies accountable for monopolistic behavior broaden beyond the traditional "consumer harm" measure. The White House has already placed two other tech critics, Tim Wu and Lina Khan, in key positions, with Wu serving in the White House as President Biden's special assistant and Khan in charge of the Federal Trade Commission."
Axios notes that Kanter's paste activism could create problems for his nomination when it goes to the US Senate, and, if he is confirmed, is likely to result in calls by big tech companies for him to recuse himself from major cases.
- KC's View:
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Criticism of big tech companies seems to be fairly bipartisan, and so I'd guess that Kanter is likely to be confirmed. And, since his job at the Justice Department would be to prosecute cases, it is hard to imagine that he'd have to recuse himself.
Amazon, Facebook and their brethren won't like it, but the fact remains that they're going to have to make their cases in court and in front of regulators.
