Khan’s FTC turns to privacy rule-making | #youtubescams | #lovescams | #datingscams

Privacy is ready to go public

My mom used to tell me I only needed to floss the teeth I wanted to keep. The same attitude applies to privacy and the FTC right now: You only need to pay attention if you have data — your own or someone else’s — you want to hold on to. Partially, this is because Congress is just getting out of bed after snoozing a couple of extra years on this issue, and lawmakers’ proposals would put a lot of extra responsibilities on the agency. But the main reason is that Lina Khan, who will start her second year as chair this week, isn’t going to wait for lawmakers.

Yes, Khan is known as an architect of a more forceful, anti-big-everything approach to antitrust, and for her years-long feud with Amazon. Forget all that for a moment.

• One of the things Khan did with her first year was make changes that would help speed along the agency’s famously laborious process for regulating whole sectors — like, say, the data economy.
• FTC Democrats haven’t been shy about wanting to tackle what they call data abuse, but the effort had to wait, as the departure of Rohit Chopra for CFPB and the slow confirmation of his replacement left the agency without a majority for several months.

Now, longtime privacy expert Alvaro Bedoya has taken his seat, just in time for Khan’s first anniversary. Probably not coincidentally, she’s begun talking about her ambitions.

• As part of a series of press interviews last week, Khan told me her thoughts about the importance of limiting certain kinds of data collection entirely.
• She also laid out her dislike of behavioral ad targeting (“incentives that are not always aligned with people’s privacy protections”) and discriminatory uses of data.
• And Khan made clear that, whatever the status of lawmakers’ debate, she wants the FTC to use its powers to protect consumers.

One almost imagines her glaring pointedly at all those companies that are relying on continued congressional gridlock and assuming no one will regulate their practices.

• What comes next is likely a (still pretty lengthy) process establishing certain specific and prevalent uses of data are unfair or deceptive. Yes, that’s a mouthful on purpose.
• Since Khan mentioned them, behavioral ads and discrimination will probably get the treatment, but she also hinted to me that the FTC’s renewed interest in kids’ privacy can be a guide.
• That could signal strategies like minimizing the collection of data, ensuring timely disposal and not using information for purposes other than those for which it was collected.

The other thing that comes next: so much pushback.

• The FTC’s two Republican commissioners have complained that Khan is making a power grab, invoking shaky powers and demonstrating her intellectual indebtedness to Marxism — all on the way to doing great damage to the U.S. economy.
• Business hasn’t been much happier. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce is threatening lawsuits.
• GOP lawmakers also may be displeased enough to try to punish the agency, which Congress has previously done (a few times) when the FTC tries to regulate industries.

All this is going on while Khan is probably also trying to:

And that’s just in tech. The economy still has lots of other sectors, and there’s also the small matter that the Supreme Court appears tempted to strike down huge portions of the agency’s structure. It’s going to be a busy, precarious time for the agency. Not everything will get done. But anyone who thinks that Khan’s just focused on the giants and that Congress will deal with data hasn’t been listening to what she’s saying.

— Ben Brody (email | twitter)

In Washington

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In the courts

Google has agreed to a $118 million settlement in a class-action gender discrimination case. The settlement covers about 15,000 women who worked for Google after September 2013; they were allegedly placed in lower-level jobs and who received fewer promotions than their male counterparts.