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February 27, 2008
FTC Chair Majoras to resign, says WSJ
John Wilke of the Wall Street Journal is reporting on the website (pd. subs. req'd) that FTC Chairman (her official title) Deborah Platt Majoras will resign within a month: Under Ms. Majoras, the agency stepped up federal enforcement of data-security laws, forcing corporate boards to safeguard consumer data and imposing penalties for breaches. It has also worked to curtail identity theft, and pressed advertisers to curb junk-food pitches to children.
The FTC generally sided with the Justice Department and brought few major antitrust cases. And it had a mixed record in court, most recently losing its effort to stop a merger between Whole Foods Market Inc. and Wild Oats.
In a split with the Bush administration, though, the FTC under Ms. Majoras sued several big drug makers for alleged efforts to delay competition from cheaper generics. Her leadership has been a mixed bag for consumers. We've been disappointed with the FTC's non-action on the well-publicized merger between the powerful data and Internet companies Google and Doubleclick and its mild (workshop) response to our petition on Internet data practices and behavioral targeting generally. On the other hand, the FTC did continue scrutiny and enforcement against companies that lost or mishandled data on her watch, including imposition of a $10 million fine and $5 million restitution order against ChoicePoint for its embarrassing sale of 163,000 consumer dossiers to identity thieves.
Posted by Ed Mierzwinski at February 27, 2008 06:53 PM
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