FTC Khan's Activism Threatens US Industry

There's something about Lina Khan's latest attack on Amazon that smells like a dirty diaper.

Biden's controversial, activist, Federal Trade Commission chair, Khan has a long history of advancing so-called progressive politics in the name of destroying American industry. In 2017 Khan called for a revision of antitrust law for "platform markets" in her legal paper, "Amazon's Antitrust Paradox," to determine how dominant a company is in the internet economy and what forms of power may constitute a threat to competition.

Indeed, she accused Amazon of engaging in predatory pricing — specifically that the e-tail giant's "below-cost pricing started eating into Diapers.com's growth" — thereby destroying its competition.

But in a recent interview with David Remnick on The New Yorker Radio Hour, Khan admitted that not only is she herself an Amazon user, but that she buys diapers from them.

"Occasionally, I'm not a Prime user, but you know, once in a while there's something I need to use it for. I recently had a baby and so you know, once in awhile if you need something — diapers or wipes or whatnot — I've used it."

So, according to Khan, Amazon's business model constitutes an existential threat to the future of humanity ... except when she needs it.

Details like this are eroding Khan's false narratives against Amazon. Since Joe Biden appointed her to lead the FTC, she has attacked Amazon on the grounds that it engages in anticompetitive practices, including using data from third-party retailers, undermining rival delivery networks, and penalizing competitors on rival platforms.

Khan wants a permanent injunction against the tech giant to "pry loose Amazon's monopolistic control to restore competition."

The agency's case hinges on a single statistic — which the FTC has misrepresented.

Khan and her minions have been repeating the same story: that Amazon switched off its Seller Fulfilled Prime (SFP) program, regardless that sellers were meeting the same standards of Amazon. But in the unredacted version of the FTC's case, already major flaws in this argument are on display.

The FTC argues that sellers using SFP were meeting delivery targets 95% of the time, but Amazon still shut the program down. What's key here is that promised delivery estimates are set by the sellers themselves when they set up their Amazon account. These estimates for delivery could be days, weeks, or even months — not the two days promised under Prime so Khan can get her diapers in time.

Amazon is on the record that about only about 16% of these sellers met Prime-level shipping standards.

All of which ignores the fact that many alternatives to Amazon exist, including (deep breath) Walmart.com, Instacart, DoorDash, Postmates, Waiter, Grubhub, Giant Peapod, Kroger, GoShare, TaskRabbit, Roadie, Dolly, Dropoff, or Target Same Day Delivery.

Khan probably wants to be seen as a giant-slayer, so she's going after the biggest target she can find.

British-born Khan is a divisive figure. House Republicans held a hearing to try to rein in the "disaster" of her activism earlier this year. The New York Post detailed how her policies will hurt "millions of Americans." Meanwhile, the liberal Politico recently published a glowing puff piece on Khan that literally read: "All the cool law students are obsessed with Lina Khan!"

(Whether this is a worse commentary on the future of journalism or law in our country remains to be seen.)

Khan's over-eagerness to bludgeon American companies with the antitrust hammer undermines her credibility when legitimate antitrust cases exist. Early in her tenure, she sought to antitrust Meta (the Facebook parent company) on the grounds that its acquisition of What's App and Instagram constituted a monopoly.

Why progressives in the Obama administration didn't raise the same concerns when Facebook bought them is a mystery. I guess we'll never know!

Khan's activism is a threat to American industry. Her effort to undermine the American free market with excessive government intervention reminds us that politicians need to be changed from time to time, that is, voted out of office.

Jared Whitley is a longtime politico who has worked in the U.S. Congress, White House and defense industry. He is an award-winning writer, having won best blogger in the state from the Utah Society of Professional Journalists (2018) and best columnist from Best of the West (2016). He earned his MBA from Hult International Business School in Dubai. Read Jared Whitley's reports — More Here.