Lina Khan Confirmation Hearing Signals Potential Big Changes For FTC

Lina Khan's nomination to be an FTC Commissioner took an important step forward on April 21 with her testimony before the Senate Commerce Committee. Unsurprisingly, Khan's testimony underscored her interest in ramping up antitrust scrutiny of large internet platforms.

Khan first rose to prominence in the antitrust world with the publication of her article Amazon's Antitrust Paradox in the Yale Law Journal in 2016. Khan argues that antitrust standards based on consumer welfare - measured primarily through prices consumers pay - are ill-equipped to protect competition in the digital economy, and have allowed Amazon to become the "titan of twenty-first century commerce." Her analysis finds that measures of price and output do not serve as effective signals of competition, and focusing on these signals allows predatory pricing and similar strategies to evade enforcement scrutiny. Khan further argues for returning to a greater focus on market structure and how a