Jon Leibowitz

As Chairman, the FTC filed more than 40 law enforcement actions to stop scams that prey on consumers suffering from the economic downturn, such as foreclosure "rescue" and mortgage modification schemes, phony debt-reduction and credit-repair services, bogus government grant opportunities, job scams, and get-rich quick frauds.[4] In one of the largest judgments imposed in an FTC case, Countrywide settled for $108 million with the FTC in June 2010 for collecting excessive fees from cash-strapped borrowers who were struggling to keep their homes.[5] In 2011, the FTC mailed 450,177 refund checks to homeowners who were allegedly overcharged by Countrywide.[6]

Leibowitz was active in preserving competition in the health care and pharmaceutical sectors. He criticized of "pay-for-delay" settlements in the pharmaceutical industry. The Commission aggressively worked at stopping pay-for-delay patent settlements in the pharmaceutical industry. These are deals in which a brand-name drug firm pays its potential generic drug rival to prevent price competition in the market.[7] As Leibowitz explained, the practice results not only in windfalls for both companies—sometimes of more than a billion dollars—but also in higher drug prices for consumers.[8] Leibowitz has published articles on this issue and advocates bringing cases against firms that engage in these practices.[9]

An FTC study released in October 2011 revealed that some pharmaceutical companies continued to engage in pay-for-delay deals in FY 2011. The findings prompted Leibowitz to ask Congress' "Super Committee" to restrict these deals, stating that it could help reduce the deficit and lower the nation's healthcare costs.[10]

During Leibowitz's tenure, the agency focused on promoting consumer protection, competition and innovation in technology sectors, through both policy initiatives and law enforcement.

The agency released a preliminary staff report December 1, 2010 titled, Protecting Consumer Privacy in an Era of Rapid Change: A Proposed Framework for Businesses and Policymakers. With regard to consumer's online privacy, Leibowitz stated: "The FTC wants to help ensure that the growing, changing, thriving information marketplace is built on a framework that promotes privacy, transparency, business innovation and consumer choice. We believe that's what most Americans want as well."[11]

Also, the FTC proposed revisions to the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) Rule in September 2011 and sought public comments. Leibowitz said the revisions were in response to the rapid changes in technology. "We want to ensure that the COPPA Rule is effective in helping parents protect their children online, without unnecessarily burdening online businesses. We look forward to the continuing thoughtful input from industry, children's advocates, and other stakeholders as we work to update the Rule."[12]

During an October 2011 speech about protecting online consumer privacy while ensuring an internet that generates the free content, Leibowitz coined the term "cyberazzi." He likened invisible online data collection practices to the methods of the paparazzi, who follow celebrities around and photograph them without their permission. "A host of invisible cyberazzi – cookies and other data catchers – follow us as we browse, reporting our every stop and action to marketing firms that, in turn, collect an astonishingly complete profile of online behavior," said Leibowitz.[13]

Under Leibowitz, the Commission settled in August 2010 with Intel to restore competition and innovation that was lost as a result of Intel's alleged anticompetitive actions.[14] In May 2010, the FTC closed its high-profile investigation of Google's proposed acquisition of AdMob, after a long investigation, concluding that it was unlikely to harm competition in the emerging mobile advertising market, citing Apple's move to launch a competing mobile ad network.[15]

As a Commissioner, Leibowitz was also involved in various Internet issues, from fighting spam and spyware to creating effective guidelines for online behavioral targeting (the practice of collecting Internet users' unique browsing history to target advertising), to ensuring that website privacy policies are clear and accessible to consumers.

Leibowitz urged the Commission to "name names" of advertisers who paid to advertise through so-called nuisance adware, software that displays or downloads advertisements on consumers' computers without their consent.[16] Leibowitz has also advocated for balanced "Net Neutrality" rules and for the right of municipalities to offer broadband to consumers free from restrictive state laws.[17]

Leibowitz has called for strong industry self-regulatory initiatives to help combat childhood obesity and ensure that only healthier foods and beverages are marketed to America's children.[18] He has also advocated continued review of entertainment industry marketing practices to prevent children from being exposed to inappropriate content. The Commission has completed five reports on this topic since 2000.[19]

The FTC monitors competition in energy markets and released its latest staff report on gasoline prices in September 2011. Leibowitz said the American people need to understand why they often pay so much for gasoline. "Our report spells out the factors that determine what consumers pay at the pump, and why gas prices seem to 'rocket up' but feather down."[20]

Leibowitz was the one commissioner to dissent on a 2007 FTC Report on Spring/Summer 2006 Nationwide Gasoline Price Increases, which found that the increase could be explained by market forces.[21] Leibowitz suggested that the plausible explanation for the increase in gasoline prices, that the Commission found, was not necessarily the only explanation. "The question you ask determines the answer you get," he wrote, "whatever theoretical justifications exist don't exclude the real world threat that there was profiteering at the expense of consumers."[22] Similarly, in an earlier report investigating accusations of price gouging by oil companies after Hurricane Katrina, Leibowitz wrote separately to note that a handful of refiners studied displayed "troubling" conduct.[23]

Leibowitz advocated for a re-invigorated enforcement of the FTC Act as a way to stop anticompetitive behavior that can no longer be reached under prevailing judicial interpretation of the antitrust laws. Leibowitz argued that in founding the FTC, "Congress intended to create an agency with authority that extended beyond the limits of the Sherman Antitrust Act."[24] Leibowitz has supported the use of Section 5 of the FTC Act ("unfair methods of competition") beyond the Sherman Act in standard setting cases[25] and in a case involving a failed agreement to fix prices.[26] With Commissioner J. Thomas Rosch (a Republican) and Commissioner Pamela Jones Harbour (an Independent), Leibowitz recently criticized a Department of Justice Report on monopolization, saying that DoJ's approach placed "a thumb on the scales in favor of firms with monopoly or near-monopoly power and against other equally significant stakeholders."[27]

The 21st Century Coalition and Leibowitz were strong advocates behind April 2017 legislation passed by President Trump that repealed many of the Obama-era regulations on internet privacy, allowing ISPs to sell its users' data.[31][1] Leibowitz told CNN that the bill's effects on privacy are overblown and called complaints "hyper-partisan hyperbole." [32][31] Leibowitz justified his position by claiming that the law would allow a new set of rules for the entire industry.[32]