US media reported that the President of the United States will nominate Google’s long-time critic and antitrust lawyer Jonathan Kanter to be in charge of the antitrust department of the Justice Department. Kanter has acted as an attorney for many companies in antitrust litigation against Google.
He also opened his own law firm last year. If confirmed by the Senate, Kanter will take over a series of cases against large technology companies led by the US Department of Justice, including the antitrust lawsuit against Google in October last year. This case accused Google of forming an illegal monopoly in the digital advertising market.
The White House stated in a press release on Tuesday: Kant is an outstanding antitrust lawyer with more than 20 years of experience. Throughout his career, Kanter is the main advocate and advocate of strong and meaningful antitrust enforcement and policies. expert. At present, the U.S. Department of Justice is still conducting a comprehensive antitrust investigation into Apple and its app store’s regulations on developers.
The nomination of Kanter marks an important step forward for the US government’s antitrust enforcement, especially for the technology industry. Earlier this year, the President of the United States also nominated Lina Khan as the chairman of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). The latter is the pioneer of antitrust in the technology industry and the author of the widely used Amazon Antitrust Paradox legal document. Another legal expert who advocates antitrust actions, Tim Wu, is currently a member of the National Economic Council.
Kanter is closely related to Lena Khan and Wu Xiuming. Unlike the FTC, which requires a majority of votes to initiate anti-monopoly enforcement, Kanter, as the Deputy Minister of Justice, can file a lawsuit on his own to prevent mergers. Earlier this month, the President of the United States also signed an executive order to promote market competition, with a focus on technology companies. This administrative order requires stricter scrutiny of mergers and acquisitions, especially mergers and acquisitions of dominant Internet platforms.
In particular, it is necessary to pay attention to the acquisition of emerging competitors, continuous mergers, data accumulation, and competition through free products. And the impact on user privacy. The executive order also calls on the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and FTC to issue new rules to promote policy goals such as the right to repair and network neutrality.
