FTC head asks Congress for real privacy laws he can enforce

Enlarge / FTC Chairman Joseph Simons testifying about antitrust matters before a Senate committee in September 2019. (credit: Alex Edelman | Bloomberg | Getty Images)

In testimony before a House subcommittee Wednesday, Federal Trade Commission Chairman Joseph Simons renewed his call for Congress to pass new privacy legislation, telling representatives, essentially, he can't enforce a law that doesn't exist.

Simons was on Capitol Hill testifying in a hearing on "Online Platforms and Market Power," the probe the House Antitrust subcommittee launched in June to dig into Apple, Amazon, Facebook, and Google.

At the highest level, the FTC is responsible for basically two things: protecting competition and protecting consumers. To that end, it's one of the two bodies with antitrust oversight, sharing responsibility with the Justice Department for reviewing mergers and challenging anticompetitive behavior.

Read 12 remaining paragraphs | Comments