FTCWatch

  • June 09, 2026

    Calendar

    Nov. 5 — The American Antitrust Institute is holding its 20th Annual Private Antitrust Enforcement Conference at the National Press Club in Washington, DC. For more information, go to: https://www.antitrustinstitute.org.

  • June 09, 2026

    Privacy Corner: GOP’s Joyce takes lead on sweeping privacy bill

    John Joyce, a Pennsylvania Republican, was vice chair of the House Energy and Commerce Committee when the GOP took the gavel in January 2025. Soon after, he was chosen to lead a major overhaul of privacy legislation.  

  • June 09, 2026

    Competition and the media explored by American Antitrust Institute panels

    The president of the American Antitrust Institute began the organization’s 27th annual policy conference with the words of Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter: “A free press is indispensable to the workings of our democratic society.”

  • June 09, 2026

    Auto dealer practices draw regulatory concerns

    The Federal Trade Commission has signaled that the advertising and pricing practices of certain auto dealers might warrant further scrutiny.

  • June 09, 2026

    State AGs seek FTC action on food delivery fees

    More than a dozen state attorneys general told the Federal Trade Commission they back a new regulation to address unfair and deceptive fees on online food delivery platforms, which the AGs said have experienced “explosive growth.”

  • June 09, 2026

    San Francisco DOJ takes on another complex cartel case: shipping containers

    When a federal court last month unsealed a superseding indictment in one of the Department of Justice’s most significant criminal antitrust cases in decades, attention focused on Washington, DC, where the DOJ made the announcement. But the investigation — and now the prosecution — is being led nearly 3,000 miles away in San Francisco. 

  • June 09, 2026

    X Corp. asks FTC to terminate 2022 privacy order

    X Corp. has asked the Federal Trade Commission to set aside or modify its 2022 settlement order against Elon Musk’s social media company.

  • June 09, 2026

    Nevada man pleads guilty to military bid-rigging plot

    Scott G. Srodes, a former employee of a shelving and storage distributor, has pleaded guilty to conspiring to rig bids and defraud the Department of Defense.

  • June 09, 2026

    FTC Act created weak agency until lawmakers stepped in

    The contentious debate over how aggressive the Federal Trade Commission should be is far from surprising. Over the years, critics have pressed the agency to clamp down more on corporate wrongdoing — and often Congress has responded with major revisions to the FTC Act. 

  • June 09, 2026

    Neil Averitt commentary: Playing it safe with AI and mergers

    When a situation is perplexing and the stakes are high, caution makes sense. This means the antitrust agencies are likely to judge mergers in the artificial intelligence space a bit more vigorously than usual and keep these markets a bit less concentrated.

  • June 09, 2026

    Bipartisan lawmakers highlight billions in investment fraud

    While the White House stressed a “Full-Scale War on Fraud,” citing primarily domestic wins last month, two bipartisan lawmakers issued a report tying more than $10 billion in losses to scam networks in Southeast Asia.

  • June 09, 2026

    Ascension-AmSurg deal can proceed with divestitures

    The Federal Trade Commission has told Ascension Health Alliance to divest several surgery center facilities to complete its proposed $3.9 billion acquisition of AmSurg LLC.

  • June 09, 2026

    FTC’s appeal of Meta trial win won’t solve agency’s AMG problem

    The Federal Trade Commission’s attempt to overturn a major trial loss in antitrust litigation seeking a breakup of Meta Platforms is unlikely to fix a broader issue with the agency’s ability to police past harms to competition in the wake of a 2021 Supreme Court decision limiting its authority.

  • June 09, 2026

    People — Lande gets top AAI award

    Robert Lande, one of the leading scholars of antitrust policy and a key voice for stronger enforcement, has been given the American Antitrust Institute’s Alfred Kahn Award.

  • May 26, 2026

    Privacy Corner: In BSA role, Watson shows off regulatory chops

    Trust and safety are top of mind for businesses choosing a software provider. Shaundra Watson, the senior director of policy for the Business Software Alliance, brings a regulator’s perspective when advocating for the tech trade association.

  • May 26, 2026

    Calendar

    June 4 — The American Antitrust Institute is hosting its 27th annual policy conference at the National Press Club in Washington, DC. For more details, go to: https://www.antitrustinstitute.org.

  • May 26, 2026

    At workshop, FTC officials outline merger priorities

    Two members of the Federal Trade Commission outlined a more open approach to mergers at a workshop Wednesday, with one questioning whether some companies are meeting their legal obligations.  

  • May 26, 2026

    Media Matters, FTC settle First Amendment rights case

    Media Matters for America has settled with the Federal Trade Commission after the journalism nonprofit sued the agency for allegedly violating its First Amendment rights.

  • May 26, 2026

    Most Americans say government regulates AI ‘too little,’ survey shows

    In a national survey by the University of Pennsylvania, nearly two-thirds of Americans said the government has done “too little” to regulate artificial intelligence, with the response holding a majority among Democrats and Republicans.

  • May 26, 2026

    FTC creates online platform to enforce TAKE IT DOWN Act

    The Federal Trade Commission has started enforcing the TAKE IT DOWN Act, which requires online platforms to remove intimate photos and videos of people that were shared without their consent.

  • May 26, 2026

    FTC privacy spending dwarfed by global peers as Congress mulls new law

    The Federal Trade Commission has carried out some of the world’s most consequential privacy enforcement actions despite having a data privacy budget a fraction the size of some of its counterparts in Europe and Asia.

  • May 26, 2026

    On the Shelf: The cutthroat campus culture behind Big Tech

    A riveting new book has the inside scoop on the culture that created the tech behemoths attempting to run circles around Washington’s regulators.

  • May 26, 2026

    People — Chopra set to take helm of new state agency in California

    Former Federal Trade Commissioner Rohit Chopra is scheduled to start a new government position in California in the coming weeks.

  • May 26, 2026

    Neil Averitt commentary: Off to the UK? Beware of online ticket scams

    One of the pleasures of stepping back from a full-time day job, as I did when I retired from the Federal Trade Commission a few years ago, is having more time to enjoy extended travel.

  • May 26, 2026

    Small businesses urge more action from antitrust enforcers

    Groups representing small businesses are beefing up their efforts to pressure enforcers to bring more antitrust enforcement actions.