Speaker 1: Cool Media.
Speaker 2: Hello, and welcome's a Better offline. I'm your host ed zietron.
Speaker 1: As.
Speaker 2: I am joined by the Chair of the Federal Trade Commission,
Speaker 2: Lena Cohn. Lena, thank you so much for joining me.
Speaker 1: Great to be here.
Speaker 2: So on a simple level, what does the FTC actually do?
Speaker 1: So, the FTC enforces America's anti trust and consumer protection laws,
Speaker 1: and so these are the laws that try to ensure
Speaker 1: that our markets are fair and honest and competitive, and
Speaker 1: so that means we're looking to protect people from illegal monopolies.
Speaker 1: We're trying to protect people from all sorts of frauds
Speaker 1: and scams. We're trying to protect people's privacy and wanting
Speaker 1: to make sure that they're not subjected to all sorts
Speaker 1: of unfair practices. We were created one hundred and ten
Speaker 1: years ago, and so it's a pretty big mandate. We
Speaker 1: have oversight across markets across the entire economy for the
Speaker 1: most part, with some exceptions like in areas such as
Speaker 1: banks and airlines. So it's a really big job that
Speaker 1: this agency does and it's been thrilling to get to
Speaker 1: do it.
Speaker 2: And it feels like you're a lot more aggressive than
Speaker 2: perhaps anti monopoly and anti consolidation has been in the past,
Speaker 2: what led to them.
Speaker 1: So I came into this job wanting to make sure
Speaker 1: that we were a fully using the tools that Congress
Speaker 1: gave us. As I noted, this agency has been around
Speaker 1: for o first century. Our agency was given some pretty
Speaker 1: important authorities and tools, but over the decades there had
Speaker 1: been a drift away from fully using all of the
Speaker 1: tools that we have, from fully embracing the law on
Speaker 1: the books. And so the first thing we did was
Speaker 1: kind of come in and just make sure that we
Speaker 1: are mapping out what are all the tools we actually
Speaker 1: have and how do we make sure we're faithfully using those.
Speaker 1: The second thing that's been important is wanting to make
Speaker 1: sure that we're enforcing the law and taking action in
Speaker 1: response to how markets actually work today, and that meant
Speaker 1: making sure we were having top expertise Internally. We started
Speaker 1: a new Bureau of Technologists that you know, brought data scientists,
Speaker 1: data engineers, people who fully understand the ins and outs
Speaker 1: of how algorithms work. Previously, companies would view lawsuits as
Speaker 1: just a cost of doing business, and especially in digital
Speaker 1: markets where there's such a focus on chasing scale and
Speaker 1: chasing growth, you know, there was a bit of a
Speaker 1: ask for forgiveness later mentality, rather than everybody abiding by
Speaker 1: the law and making sure Americans were getting their rights
Speaker 1: on the front end.
Speaker 2: So how do you curtail that instinct where they have
Speaker 2: so much money that they can just kind of absorb
Speaker 2: the fee, sorry, the fine.
Speaker 1: I mean, yeah, it's a good question, and it's especially
Speaker 1: important because a few months before I came into this role,
Speaker 1: the courts had actually further limited the FTC's ability to
Speaker 1: get money. We mitigated that in a couple of ways. First,
Speaker 1: we used the tools we did have to their full
Speaker 1: extent to still get record breaking sums. We also made
Speaker 1: sure we were looking at things like individual accountability, and
Speaker 1: so if a specific individual executive was involved in directing
Speaker 1: or participating in the law breaking, the lawsuit can be
Speaker 1: brought not just against the company but also against the
Speaker 1: individual executive. And so we've done that in several instances
Speaker 1: where we had evidence that high level execs knew what
Speaker 1: was going on, had the ability to stop it, and didn't.
Speaker 1: And there's been a lot of empirical work that shows
Speaker 1: that actually holding individual executives accountable is really important for
Speaker 1: deterring law breaking in the first instance. So we've done that.
Speaker 1: We've also made sure that when companies, for example, have
Speaker 1: used illegal practices to hoard people's data, that they're having
Speaker 1: to actually get rid of that data or get rid
Speaker 1: of the models that we're trained on the data. So
Speaker 1: we're actually getting remedies that make sense for today's markets.
Speaker 2: So you file the case against Amazon? What is the case?
Speaker 2: What's going on over there? Because I know you have
Speaker 2: some history when at Yale Law School you wrote that
Speaker 2: the antitrust paradox. I believe it, like, what's the case
Speaker 2: against Amazon?
Speaker 1: So just to step back, what we see with digital
Speaker 1: platforms in particular is that there can be a life cycle.
Speaker 1: Right initially, when a digital platform is entering the market,
Speaker 1: they're really focused on chasing scale and building up a
Speaker 1: large customer base on one side of the market, so
Speaker 1: then they can also attract a big customer base on
Speaker 1: the other end, and they want to basically achieve, you know,
Speaker 1: the flywheel of accelerated growth in them. Mentum that, especially
Speaker 1: in digital markets, once you've kind of hit that sweet
Speaker 1: spot of sufficient scale, there can be enormous acceleration. But
Speaker 1: what we've seen is that once firms achieve that accelerated growth,
Speaker 1: and if they're successful at knocking out their arrivals, we
Speaker 1: can see a different phase kick in where the platform
Speaker 1: starts looking to milk the monopoly right, and we can
Speaker 1: see that in a few ways, the company can start
Speaker 1: charging higher prices. Sometimes they can make service worse. Corey
Speaker 1: doctor Rowe has coined this term and shoitification around just
Speaker 1: the degradation of the services that you see. And so
Speaker 1: the lawsuit that we've brought is about Amazon as it
Speaker 1: is in this second phase, where basically we alleged they
Speaker 1: have height prices for both buyers on Amazon's platform as
Speaker 1: well as the small businesses that sell through its platform,
Speaker 1: where Amazon now collects one out of every two dollars.
Speaker 1: We also note that Amazon has kind of cluttered its
Speaker 1: search results page with irrelevant ads as a very deliberate
Speaker 1: strategy to be able to basically milk more ad revenue
Speaker 1: from the platform even when it's not serving shoppers and
Speaker 1: serving consumers. And so we allege that Amazon's only been
Speaker 1: able to make things worse in this way for people
Speaker 1: because they've architected this anti competitive scheme to block out
Speaker 1: rivals through illegal tactics. And so that's what the lawsuit
Speaker 1: is about. It's going to go to trial in a
Speaker 1: couple of years, and we brought it with a whole
Speaker 1: bunch of state attorneys general as well.
Speaker 2: Lovely So some one of the core thrusts you made
Speaker 2: in your paper. Amazon's antitrust paradox is that they prioritized
Speaker 2: growth over being a profitable company. This feels like a
Speaker 2: problem across the tech firms, all of them, they all
Speaker 2: seem to be growth hungry. I feel do you feel
Speaker 2: that this is anti competitive at its core because growth
Speaker 2: doesn't seem to be about better, just seems like more.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a really good question. And the antitrust laws
Speaker 1: in no way say that chasing scale or chasing growth
Speaker 1: is illegal, or even that being big is illegal. It
Speaker 1: really comes down to what are the mechanisms of chasing
Speaker 1: that growth or the mechanisms of becoming big? Right, and
Speaker 1: so in the same ways that we would recognize, hey,
Speaker 1: like going across You know, if you have a pizza
Speaker 1: shop that goes across the street and sets fire to
Speaker 1: its rival pizza shop, you know that's not fair competition.
Speaker 1: That's an extreme example, but there are all sorts of
Speaker 1: other mechanisms that the law say are not fair means
Speaker 1: of competing, and so that's what the law does. It
Speaker 1: tries to distinguish what is fair play versus not when
Speaker 1: you're looking to, you know, compete and grow and get big.
Speaker 1: And so chasing scale and growth is not in any
Speaker 1: way by itself illegal and instead is a really kind
Speaker 1: of core part of what incentivizes business. Is What we
Speaker 1: have seen though, is if law enforcers are not effective
Speaker 1: and are not timely, chasing growth can happen through playing
Speaker 1: fast and loose with the rules, especially if companies know that, Okay,
Speaker 1: sure I might get hit with a lawsuit in five years,
Speaker 1: but guess what, I will have hit my targets by then,
Speaker 1: I'll be the biggest firm. I'll have achieved dominance, and
Speaker 1: so I can worry about that later. From a business perspective,
Speaker 1: it's actually better for the company to play fast and
Speaker 1: loose with the rules so that they gain that dominance
Speaker 1: and then deal with it later. That's really problematic as
Speaker 1: a mindset for law enforcement, and so that's something that
Speaker 1: we've been trying to figure out. How do we devise
Speaker 1: strategies to be much more assertive, be much more forward leaning,
Speaker 1: be much more timely, So that we're not having to
Speaker 1: do that clean up five years, ten years after.
Speaker 2: The fact, How does the FTC have to actually tackle
Speaker 2: anti trust violators? And indeed within those shortened time scales.
Speaker 1: So we oversee various facets of firms behavior. One is
Speaker 1: if they are looking to merge or pursue an acquisition,
Speaker 1: if it's above you know, one hundred and nineteen million dollars,
Speaker 1: it gets reported both to the FTC and to the
Speaker 1: Anti Trust Division, and we can figure out is this
Speaker 1: an anti competitive transaction? Is this basically going to reduce competition?
Speaker 1: And then we can also look at companies business tactics,
Speaker 1: especially you know, if they've become monopolies or are kind
Speaker 1: of using their dominance in illegal ways, and so we
Speaker 1: can bring lawsuits. We can also issue rules, and we've
Speaker 1: been very active in issuing rules, including in areas like
Speaker 1: fake reviews, you know, taking on things like government impostors.
Speaker 1: We just finalized a rule taking on junk fees in
Speaker 1: the economy. These you know, hidden fees that companies just
Speaker 1: show at the very end that you don't know what
Speaker 1: you're exactly paying for, but suddenly the price of the
Speaker 1: ticket is almost doubled and you have no choice, and
Speaker 1: so we've issued a series of rules, we've brought a
Speaker 1: series of lawsuits. We can also do various studies of
Speaker 1: the market, including in areas where things are moving very quickly.
Speaker 1: So we a few months ago launched a study into
Speaker 1: surveillance pricing, this idea that firms could be charging every
Speaker 1: single individual a standalone price based on the data they
Speaker 1: have on you. So these are just some of the
Speaker 1: tools and authorities we have.
Speaker 2: So let's still call official intelligence. From a regulatory perspective,
Speaker 2: what are your major concerns.
Speaker 1: So the biggest concern for me, just right at the
Speaker 1: beginning was making sure we were making very very clear
Speaker 1: to the market that there was no AI exemption from
Speaker 1: the laws on the books. And this can sound like
Speaker 1: a basic point, but it seemed incredibly important because we
Speaker 1: have seen, especially when new technologies come onto the market,
Speaker 1: we can see an effort by firms to say, Okay,
Speaker 1: sure you have these age old laws on the books,
Speaker 1: but this new technology is different, and that means these
Speaker 1: laws don't apply or they have to apply in dramatically
Speaker 1: different ways. And it's really important for enforcers to hear
Speaker 1: out those arguments, you know, make sure we understand how
Speaker 1: the technologies are working, but not get so dazzled by
Speaker 1: the novelty to say, okay, well, I guess we can
Speaker 1: totally abandon our core laws and suddenly we're saying, okay,
Speaker 1: fraud is illegal, but if you do fraud with AI
Speaker 1: sometimes somehow that's okay. Right, That's not a position we
Speaker 1: want to be in.
Speaker 2: Companies are making like that kind of argument. They were
Speaker 2: attempted to sites that, not that specifically, but they trying
Speaker 2: to dodge.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we do see arguments that, you know, the traditional
Speaker 1: laws around unfair practices or deceptive practices applied differently. The
Speaker 1: other big thing is, you know, America has been so
Speaker 1: fortunate to be such a key home of breakthrough innovations historically,
Speaker 1: and to my mind, a key ingredient of that has
Speaker 1: been making sure we have fair competitive markets where you
Speaker 1: actually do have somebody with a great new idea, an
Speaker 1: upstart that's able to come in, that's able to fairly
Speaker 1: compete and knock out the incumbents. That's how historically we
Speaker 1: have gotten real major technological progress in our country. And
Speaker 1: what I wanted to make sure we were being very
Speaker 1: clear eyed about is the risk of a few large
Speaker 1: dominant incumbents locking in the market in a way that
Speaker 1: shuts out a lot of that innovation and a lot
Speaker 1: of that next generation breakthrough that historically we've seen come
Speaker 1: purely from fair competition and open markets. So it was
Speaker 1: about wanting to make sure that companies are not using
Speaker 1: their existing heft to immediately lock up the market and
Speaker 1: shut out the innovation that we should be able to see.
Speaker 2: So, with that in mind, are you worried about the
Speaker 2: consolidation we're seeing right now in the generative AI market?
Speaker 2: Because to build these models, the foundation models like Claude
Speaker 2: three or GPT or LAMA or what have you, it
Speaker 2: requires financial heft. How do you avoid the monopoly that
Speaker 2: naturally comes out of the fact that you need billions
Speaker 2: and billions of dollars to even make one of these.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a key question, and one approach that we've
Speaker 1: taken is making sure that we are actually going layer
Speaker 1: by layer in the market. Right, And so you want
Speaker 1: to understand, Okay, what's happening with chips, what's happening with
Speaker 1: cloud and compute, what's happening with the models. You want
Speaker 1: to understand what are the key economic properties of each
Speaker 1: point in the stack and then understand, Okay, do we
Speaker 1: see this consolidation purely because they're such high fixed costs
Speaker 1: and you know, that's just going to be the state
Speaker 1: of the market. And how do we make sure that
Speaker 1: the degree you do have dominant players in some of
Speaker 1: these layers, they're not using that dominance to then squelch
Speaker 1: out competition in a layer where you should actually be
Speaker 1: able to see more innovation, more competition. And so we're
Speaker 1: looking at, for example, some of the partnerships and investments
Speaker 1: between the big cloud providers and some of the newer firms. Famously,
Speaker 1: you know, the Microsoft Open Ai partnership. Amazon and Google
Speaker 1: have also made some investments, and we want to understand,
Speaker 1: you know, are these truly kind of independent companies. Are
Speaker 1: these able to be independent firms in terms of the
Speaker 1: competitive decision making some of the key strategic calls when
Speaker 1: so much investment is being made. What is the structure
Speaker 1: of the contracts, What are some of the key requirements?
Speaker 1: Are there kind of interlocking director it's here in ways
Speaker 1: that create conflicts that are problematic? Are there contractual you know,
Speaker 1: tying provisions here? So that's just the universe of what
Speaker 1: we're looking at, But of course, it's a fast moving
Speaker 1: market and we're very fortunate to have just top tier
Speaker 1: technological talent in house to be letting us push forward here.
Speaker 2: So consolidation is a concern though in general of AI, it's.
Speaker 1: Certainly something we have to be vigilant about to make
Speaker 1: sure that to the degree we do see you know,
Speaker 1: monopolies or firms with enormous market power, we want to
Speaker 1: make sure a that that's not being achieved through illegal tactics,
Speaker 1: or that it's not being used illegal to snuff out
Speaker 1: competition somewhere else. So that's incredibly important.
Speaker 2: How about the training data situation, because that feels like
Speaker 2: a mixture of different parts of the government be involved,
Speaker 2: but that also feels like a massive anti competitive issue.
Speaker 2: Is this something the FTC is looking into or would
Speaker 2: have to partner with other parts of the government potentially, So.
Speaker 1: We are looking into it. Actually, last year we convened
Speaker 1: a roundtable with creators from all sorts of different sectors.
Speaker 1: So we had you know, artists, authors, graphic designers, even
Speaker 1: people who work in fashion sharing how their core creations
Speaker 1: had actually already been scraped in many instances and suddenly
Speaker 1: they were waking up where their life's creation having been
Speaker 1: ingested by this machine and spitting out outcomes that they
Speaker 1: had never consented to and suddenly felt like they had
Speaker 1: no control over. And so that's something we've heard a
Speaker 1: lot about. Interestingly, these creators, many of them were acknowledging
Speaker 1: that these technologies could be quite fruitful for them as well.
Speaker 1: They're not kind of reflexively and viscerally anti AI. It's
Speaker 1: really about wanting to make sure that the terms on
Speaker 1: which their creations are being used, that those are actually
Speaker 1: fairly negotiated and it's not some type of opt out
Speaker 1: model after the fact that they actually should be able
Speaker 1: to consent, that they should actually be getting compensation that's
Speaker 1: you know, can measure it with the value of what
Speaker 1: they're getting. So that's a lot of concerns we've heard.
Speaker 1: The FTC submitted a comment to the Copyright Office, which
Speaker 1: is considering some of these issues, kind of relaying what
Speaker 1: we had heard, and so it's certainly a live issue,
Speaker 1: and to the extent the FTC can share expertise on it,
Speaker 1: we've been looking to do that.
Speaker 2: So Generati is being crammed into every tech product. Do
Speaker 2: you see any potential for consumer homes from this happening.
Speaker 1: Well, generally, we've brought a set of lawsuits that fall
Speaker 1: into a few categories. One of the big categories is
Speaker 1: around this idea of AI hype. So as more and
Speaker 1: more products are adopting generative AI services, they're making oftentimes
Speaker 1: commitments or promises about what these services can actually deliver,
Speaker 1: and sometimes we see that those claims are inflated. And
Speaker 1: so you know, for example, the FTC a few months
Speaker 1: ago brought a whole sweep of enforcement actions against for example,
Speaker 1: a company that was claiming to be the world's first
Speaker 1: robot lawyer. Do not pay, but the product fail to
Speaker 1: live up to its claims that the service could substitute
Speaker 1: for the expertise of a human lawyer. Now, don't get
Speaker 1: me wrong. To the extent that these types of services
Speaker 1: and advances can bring things like way low cost legal
Speaker 1: services to people, that's a great thing. But just we
Speaker 1: want to make sure companies are not inflating or hyping
Speaker 1: or falsely overstating what those services can actually do. So
Speaker 1: that's been a big strain of the cases that we've
Speaker 1: brought so far in this area.
Speaker 2: So do you see any anti competitive issues in the
Speaker 2: cloud in the compute industry in general, even outside of AI,
Speaker 2: because it really is just a few big players.
Speaker 1: It is. Yeah, it is a relatively small number of firms.
Speaker 1: The FTC did do a inquiry here. We got a
Speaker 1: lot of comments and some of the complaints that we
Speaker 1: heard about focused on things like how easy is it
Speaker 1: to exit the cloud service and transfer your data elsewhere?
Speaker 1: And are you having to play pay these egress fees
Speaker 1: to the cloud providers in ways that inhibits, you know, switching.
Speaker 1: We also heard just more generally about some of the
Speaker 1: software licensing practices, where some people suggested that some of
Speaker 1: the cloud providers limit their ability to use certain software
Speaker 1: in other cloud infrastructure provider environments, so that you can
Speaker 1: imagine could lead to lock in, or if one cloud
Speaker 1: provider is effectively degrading the ability to use other third
Speaker 1: party softwares on that cloud, you could see some issues there.
Speaker 1: And then we also heard some concerns that some provisions
Speaker 1: in cloud computing contracts could be incentivizing customers to consolidate
Speaker 1: their use of cloud services to just one provider that
Speaker 1: could further hasten consolidation. More generally, we looked at this
Speaker 1: not just from the competition lens, but also from a
Speaker 1: resiliency lens. I think we've all seen how when you
Speaker 1: have extreme centralization that can also create a lot of
Speaker 1: fragility where you have a single point of failure, right,
Speaker 1: And we've seen how if a single data of a
Speaker 1: center somewhere goes out, sometimes a corner of the Internet
Speaker 1: also goes out. And so how do we make sure
Speaker 1: we're also thinking about the resiliency element here. And then
Speaker 1: they're kind of similar data security concerns as well that
Speaker 1: we heard about.
Speaker 2: So you've been a nonmeditorializing here attacked I would describe
Speaker 2: some of the clammiest men alive. A lot of people
Speaker 2: in bench capital and within tech have come for you.
Speaker 2: How do you deal with that? How's that affected you?
Speaker 1: So as a general matter, you know, I focus on
Speaker 1: making sure we're hearing from Americans across the country. And
Speaker 1: sometimes it's very easy in these jobs to actually become
Speaker 1: very insulated and only hear from the people who have
Speaker 1: access us to power or kind of know you know,
Speaker 1: where to be ranting in a way that it gets
Speaker 1: to public enforcers very easily. So it's really about just
Speaker 1: making sure that you're keeping good perspective, keeping a broad
Speaker 1: purview of who it is that we serve. So we've
Speaker 1: done listening sessions across the country, for example, going to
Speaker 1: places like Baraboo, Wisconsin or Aimes, Iowa, hearing from you know,
Speaker 1: the gig drivers that use some of these ride sharing
Speaker 1: platforms to understand what are they seeing, what is their experience.
Speaker 1: We talk to a lot of farmers who are concerned
Speaker 1: about the ability to repair their own tractors and why
Speaker 1: there's been you know, increasing friction there and so keeping
Speaker 1: just a broader set of voices in mind as we're
Speaker 1: making our decisions, I think has been incredibly important to
Speaker 1: just keep a north star that's properly focused on, you know,
Speaker 1: the public as a whole, rather than a handful of
Speaker 1: of well resourced, well connected individuals that can sometimes have
Speaker 1: an outsized role in policy decisions.
Speaker 2: So what do you think, what are some of the
Speaker 2: big wins? What the ones you're most proud of in
Speaker 2: your time?
Speaker 1: Well, because of the FTC's work, Americans saw the cost
Speaker 1: of inhalers go down from hundreds of dollars just just
Speaker 1: thirty five dollars. In the digital space, you know, we've
Speaker 1: really helped set new rules of the road. I mean,
Speaker 1: one trend that we've seen is as more companies have
Speaker 1: become reliant on service based revenues, they've introduced subscriptions and
Speaker 1: become much more reliant on subscription revenue, and so we
Speaker 1: see firms make it very easy to sign up for
Speaker 1: a subscription, but then extraordinarily difficult to cancel. We brought
Speaker 1: a whole bunch of lawsuits, including against Amazon, including against
Speaker 1: Adobe for their illegal subscription practices that were awarding Americans
Speaker 1: from being able to cancel in ways that resulted in people,
Speaker 1: you know, overpaying for months and months. We had people
Speaker 1: tell us the only way I could cancel my subscription
Speaker 1: was to cancel my credit card, right, I mean, just
Speaker 1: deeply anti anti consumer practices. We also finalized a rule
Speaker 1: that will go into effect next year such that all
Speaker 1: companies would have to make it as easy to cancel
Speaker 1: a subscription as it is to sign up for one.
Speaker 1: We've also been very active in taking on data brokers.
Speaker 1: You know, there's been a wild wild West out there
Speaker 1: and how people's personal information is bought and sold, and
Speaker 1: we've brought a whole set of law enforcement actions when
Speaker 1: data brokers are illegally using or collecting people's health data.
Speaker 1: People's precise geolocation data, sensitive data like browsing data. Just
Speaker 1: to make clear that the default assumption is not that
Speaker 1: all of this sensitive data can be bought and sold
Speaker 1: even if people have not affirmative given permission. We just
Speaker 1: brought the other week two cases against significant data brokers
Speaker 1: Mobile Walla and Gravy Analytics for some of their illegal
Speaker 1: practices involving geolocation data. The Mobile Walla case was especially
Speaker 1: interesting to my mind because it involved account about real
Speaker 1: time bidding data, and there's been all this research suggesting
Speaker 1: that the online auctions of real time bidding end up
Speaker 1: exposing people sensitive data, and we brought a case noting
Speaker 1: that that exposure could be you know, and companies using
Speaker 1: the real time bidding data unlawfully is problematic. And so
Speaker 1: those have been, you know, some of the advances that
Speaker 1: we've made.
Speaker 2: So you were confirmed with broad bipartisan support. Jadie Vance
Speaker 2: spoke fondly of you. Do you have hope that your
Speaker 2: kind of your legacy continues in some level?
Speaker 1: Well, I can't predict what the future holds. I do
Speaker 1: know that there has been strong bipartisan support for taking
Speaker 1: on unchecked private power. That's true in technology markets. That's
Speaker 1: been especially true when it involves people's privacy, when it
Speaker 1: involves kids privacy. I think we've seen, you know, people
Speaker 1: recognize that if you're freaked out by unlawful surveillance when
Speaker 1: the government does it, you should also be freaked out
Speaker 1: by surveillance when private companies do it, because the the
Speaker 1: you know, the line there can be quite porous. And
Speaker 1: so I do think there are a set of areas
Speaker 1: where there is strong bipartisan concern and commitment to taking
Speaker 1: on corporate law breaking, and so I hope that will continue.
Speaker 2: All right, One last question, So right now, I would
Speaker 2: describe the mood is not great out. I think the
Speaker 2: people are feeling a little dark. Feels like the ultra
Speaker 2: wealthy are kind of gating speed and seeping into the government.
Speaker 2: What would you tell people to give them hope?
Speaker 1: Ooof's a that's a tough one. I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: I'm a patriot, you know, I really believe in America.
Speaker 1: I think there have been moments before where the path
Speaker 1: ahead was not clear. And one approach that I've taken
Speaker 1: to this job is there are no inevitable outcomes, right,
Speaker 1: be it in terms of how our markets evolve, be
Speaker 1: it in terms of what our government does or doesn't do,
Speaker 1: and how people in positions like at the FTC at
Speaker 1: have huge consequences for you know, whether you have markets
Speaker 1: that are premised on on check surveillance or whether you
Speaker 1: can imagine people's data and privacy being protected right. There
Speaker 1: can sometimes be an effort to say, well, there's just
Speaker 1: this inevitable march of technological progress where outcomes are sort
Speaker 1: of already baked, and I don't believe that. I think
Speaker 1: how we use our laws, how we use our policies,
Speaker 1: is incredibly important. A priority for me at the FTC
Speaker 1: has been to engage with the public and that's partly
Speaker 1: so that we hear from them, partly so that we
Speaker 1: share with them what we're doing, but it's also to
Speaker 1: me make sure that people know that they can hold
Speaker 1: future people at the FTC accountable as well for what
Speaker 1: decisions are not being made. So I think we've seen
Speaker 1: you know that having a strong government that's focused on
Speaker 1: protecting people is important and people should be expecting that.
Speaker 2: Lena, thank you so much for joining me. It's been
Speaker 2: such a pleasure to have you. Thank you for doing this.
Speaker 1: Thanks so much.
Speaker 2: You've been listening to better Offline, Neil, You've got to
Speaker 2: name my own podcast day. Lena Khan, Chair of the FTC,
Speaker 2: thank you so much for listening. Everyone, Thank you for
Speaker 2: listening to Better Offline. The editor and composer of the
Speaker 2: Better Offline theme song is Matasowski. You can check out
Speaker 2: more of his music and audio projects at Matasowski dot com,
Speaker 2: M A T T O S O W s ki
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