- December 17, 2021
- Posted by: Stratford Team
- Category: Business
Business lobbying groups are pushing senators to strip measures that would grant new enforcement powers to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) out of Democrats’ $2 trillion climate and social spending bill.
They’re targeting provisions in the Build Back Better Act that would provide additional funding to the FTC to investigate data protection and antitrust issues and give the FTC the authority to levy new civil penalties against companies that engage in unfair or deceptive trade practices.
Those measures are backed by pro-consumer and privacy groups that say they would deter businesses from using exploitative data practices by empowering the FTC to fine first-time violators that are currently only given a warning in most cases.
Business groups argued in a letter to lawmakers that the new enforcement mechanisms would make the FTC “the lawmaker, prosecutor, judge, and jury all at once” and that the threat of fines for violations that are not clearly…
