US House panel critical of Twitter probe to question FTC chair Lina Khan at July 13 hearing

US Federal Trade Commission chair Lina Khan is ready to testify on July 13 earlier than the House Judiciary Committee led by Republicans who’ve sharply criticised her management of the antitrust enforcement company, the committee and fee confirmed on Friday.

This can be her first look earlier than the committee since Republicans assumed management.

Republicans have been particularly important of the FTC’s privateness investigation into Twitter because it was bought by billionaire Tesla CEO Elon Musk.

In March, the FTC confirmed it was conducting an investigation into Twitter’s privateness practices. The company has been involved whether or not Twitter had the staffing to abide by a May 2022 settlement with the FTC through which it agreed to enhance its privateness practices.

In April, the committee subpoenaed Khan for paperwork associated to the Twitter privateness probe following Musk’s $44 billion buy of the social media firm in October.

House Judiciary Committee chair Jim Jordan instructed in a June 8 letter “there is an unjustified approximate one-year gap in the FTC’s actions with respect to Twitter” and added it was cheap to conclude neither the prior chair nor Khan significantly deliberate to take motion in opposition to Twitter “until political pressure arose given Musk’s impending acquisition.”

Jordan in February additionally questioned the FTC’s plans to undertake a brand new rule to ban noncompete clauses for employees and its method to the merger of Illumina and Grail. San Diego-based Illumina, which specialises in gene sequencing, is interesting an FTC order that mentioned the corporate’s $7.1 billion acquisition of Grail will curb competitors within the cancer-testing market. Illumina has denied the allegations.

The FTC, which usually has 5 commissions together with two from the minority social gathering, at the moment has simply three Democratic commissioners after Christine Wilson stepped down on the finish of March.

Khan, an antitrust researcher targeted on Big Tech’s immense market energy, vowed to reinvigorate antitrust enforcement after she joined the FTC in June 2021 and was named chair.

This week the FTC sued Amazon.com accusing it of enrolling thousands and thousands of shoppers into its paid subscription Amazon Prime service with out their consent and making it laborious for them to cancel.

Politico first reported the plans for the listening to.

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