Big Tech critic Lina Khan is nominated to the FTC — and antitrust could get a lot more "anti"

If the government did a "40 under 40" list... Lina Khan would probably be on it. President Biden just nominated the 32-year-old Columbia law school professor to be one of five commissioners at the Federal Trade Commission. If appointed, she would be the youngest FTC commissioner in history. FTC = the US govt agency that enforces anti-monopoly laws and promotes consumer protection.

• Antitrust scholar: In 2017, Khan graduated from Yale Law School, where she published a paper called “Amazon’s Antitrust Paradox." It went viral, becoming the most-read law article.
• Tech critic: Khan has been a vocal critic of Big Tech power, calling for a wider interpretation of antitrust law and potential harm to consumers.

Antitrust could get a lot more "anti"... Khan has said that we need "a new vocabulary" for addressing Big Tech's dominance. That could mean championing to expand the scope of antitrust law. She's part of a new movement, sometimes referred to as "Hipster Antitrust" (lol).

• Hipster Antitrust argues that US law focuses so much on short-term price benefits to consumers, that it fails to protect competition.
• For example: Khan's viral paper argues that while Amazon can benefit consumers by aggressively lowering prices, its power to price out competitors could hurt consumers by reducing options and innovation.