Former FTC Officials Decry Agency's Decline

John Davisson, senior counsel at the Electronic Privacy Information Center, asked Slaughter, a Democrat fired by Trump, about the current agency's privacy efforts. Davisson noted that the FTC's “current director" of the Consumer Protection Bureau -- Christopher Mufarrige, although Davisson didn't mention him by name -- described former Democratic FTC Chair Lina Khan's efforts on data brokers and the discriminatory use of surveillance technologies against customers as “overzealous.”

Slaughter said that mindset is “bad as a matter of policy” and “deeply problematic” in legal terms. “When Congress passes a law directing an agency to address particular topics, it is the job of the agency to follow the law."

Given that the FTC has unfairness authority, “for the FTC to say 'utilizing that is necessarily an overreach' strikes me as not conservative but in fact quite radical,” Slaughter said. She added that she would have expected Congress to have "fired back and order the FTC to 'follow the law that we have written.'"

Slaughter is one of two Democratic commissioners who Trump fired in late March (see 2503190049), a move which both former commissioners have called "illegal." They sued (see 2503270056), though the Trump administration has said they will defend the firings (see 2503190057). Most recently, the U.S. Supreme Court stayed Slaughter's reinstatement and scheduled a December argument in the case (see 2509220054).

Sayyed, senior competition counsel at TechFreedom and director of the FTC’s policy planning during the first Trump administration, said “the rapid decline of the agency over the past five years should be of significant concern.” He said he sees “no evidence" that Congress or its "oversight committees are concerned” about it.

Regarding privacy, David Brody, managing attorney of the Digital Justice Initiative at the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, said the issue “is a load-bearing wall of democracy, and it is crumbling.” He accused the FTC of playing “Whac-a-Mole” with privacy enforcement.

But Sayyad and Slaughter pointed to the commission's limited resources. Since the FTC conducts case-by-case enforcement, that means it must ensure the “way cases are resolved is effectively a deterrent" for the target of the action and other companies that may be engaging in the same behavior, Slaughter said.

Sayyad said the FTC should have more economists and lawyers to help with enforcement but warned that “the agency cannot be all things on all issues.” The “effect of expanding [the FTC’s] mission without the resources” would leave it in a bad place.

When asked whether the FTC should weigh in on age verification, Sayyad said there are always “competing interests” on such issues, but the agency could use guidance from the courts and Congress on this issue. It's “important for the Congress to effectively oversee the agency."

Slaughter noted that one thing the FTC has “done very effectively is police against misrepresentations that companies make about what their product can achieve,” which is where the agency could weigh in on age verification.

She added that Khan stood up the Office of Technology at the FTC during her tenure as chair, which is “invaluable” when thinking about “the claims companies make about what their tech can do,” especially given the “real potential problems about data collection.”

FTC Bipartisanship 'Can Be Enormously Valuable'

Eric Null, co-director of the Privacy & Data Project at the Center for Democracy and Technology, asked about the federal government’s attempts to turn over sensitive information to private companies (see 2508040021).

Slaughter said that's where “bipartisanship of the FTC can be enormously valuable," since there are concerns across the political spectrum about government gaining access to sensitive information. "It's really concerning that [government] can get it when it is held by one or two or three large companies,” she added. “There really should be bipartisan effort to think about where concentrated power is fueling oppression.”

Though some states have stepped in to protect consumers where the FTC has failed, the fundamental issue with that approach is that “we lose the protection for the people who are not in those states,” Slaughter said. For example, “there are a lot of people who live in California," but many don't, "and they also deserve the protection of the law.”

However, she noted that "the FTC has a very long and distinguished history of addressing new technologies," and "at the end of the day, the accountability continues to need to be the people who are making the decisions about how to develop, deploy, utilize and make claims about the technology."

In the hearing's discussion about the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Erie Meyer, the agency's former chief technologist under the Biden administration, noted that potential regulations around data brokers have been walked back under the second Trump administration. In 2024, the CFPB proposed a rule blocking data brokers from selling sensitive personal and financial information to scammers.

The rule was designed to crack down on stalkers, scammers and spies -- and it was bipartisan, said Meyer, now federal alumni fellow at the Institute for Technology Law & Policy. It stemmed from a case where data brokers sold the personal information of seniors with signs of dementia to those they knew were scammers, she said. But the proposed rule was withdrawn in May.