If there was any doubt that Congress created the agencies as flexible, adaptive hedges against new threats, then the history of the #FTCAct should dispel it.

Congress created the #FTC through the FTCA because the courts kept misinterpreting its existing #antitrust laws, like the #ShermanAct. Companies would engage in the most obvious acts of naked, catastrophic fuckery, and judges would say, "Welp, because Congress didn't *specifically* ban this conduct, I guess it's OK."

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One interesting wrinkle to framing platform degradation as a failure to connect willing senders and receivers is that it places a whole host of conduct within the regulatory remit of the #FTC. #Section5 of the #FTCAct contains a broad prohibition against "unfair and deceptive" practices:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/10/the-courage-to-govern/#whos-in-charge

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The fact that a company can make more money by defrauding you by revoking or bricking the things you buy from them doesn't oblige *you* to stand up for their right to do this.

Indeed, all of this conduct is arguably illegal, under Section 5 of the #FTCAct, which prohibits "unfair and deceptive business practices":

https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/10/the-courage-to-govern/#whos-in-charge

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Take #Section5 of the #FTCAct, which gives the Commission broad powers to prevent "unfair and deceptive" practices. Since the *1970s*, the FTC just acted like this didn't exist, even though it was right there all along, between Section 4 and Section 6.

Then, under the directorship of FTC chair #LinaKhan, Section 5 was rediscovered and mobilized, first to end the practice of #noncompete "agreements" for workers nationwide:

https://mattstoller.substack.com/p/antitrust-enforcers-to-ban-indentured

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That is, Bork claimed that a close reading of existing antitrust laws - the #ShermanAct, the #ClaytonAct, the #FTCAct - would reveal that Congress didn't want regulators or judges to prevent or break up monopolies. No no no! These laws were only drafted to punish *bad* monopolies.

A "bad monopoly" is one that uses its market power to raise prices or lower quality.

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Hypothetically there's another way to discipline Amazon's appetites as it gorges itself on all of us, buyer or seller: regulation. Much of Amazon's conduct falls under the broad terms "unfair and deceptive," which the #FTC has broad authority to prohibit and punish under #Section5 of the #FTCAct.

https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/10/the-courage-to-govern/#whos-in-charge

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Consumer groups weren't alone in sounding the alarm over the deteriorating conditions in the airline sector. In 2022, dozens of state attorneys general - Democrats and Republicans - sent open letters to Buttigieg begging him to use his broad powers as Secretary of Transport to hold the airlines accountable.

What are those powers? Well, the big one is USC40 Section 41712(a), the "unfair and deceptive" authority modeled on #Section5 of the #FTCAct.

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