Hereâs some good news for massive corporations that have violated the public trust by exposing the personal data of millions of American consumers, as if they needed it: the governmentâs new chief watchdog is one of their own. Andrew Smith, a lawyer who has represented dozens of firms including Facebook and Equifax, will serve as the head of the Federal Trade Commissionâs consumer protection unit.
Smith was confirmed for the watchdog position Wednesday on a party-line vote after he promised to recuse himself from basically every high-profile case the US Federal Trade Commission (the FTC) is involved in because heâs had a hand in representing the companies that are being investigated, per The New York Times.
For the last two years, Smith has worked as a lawyer at the Washington, DC firm Covington & Burling. During his time there, heâs represented a number of companies that have managed to get themselves in hot water with the government. He has recently had a hand in representing Facebook, Uber, and Equifax as the companies faced heat for a variety of data misuse. Prior to that, he was part of the legal team that defended AMG Services, a particularly predatory payday lender that was smacked with a $1.3 billion settlement for deceptive and exploitative practices it used to squeeze more money out of its cash-strapped borrowers.
As you may be aware, the firms that Smith has been involved with currently have matters before the FTC that could result in precedent-setting decisions, which is troubling!
Facebook is under investigation as to whether the company violated a consent decree it signed in 2011 in which it promised not to share user data without explicit permission. The companyâs loyalty to that pledge has come into question thanks to the recent revelations that shady political consultancy firm Cambridge Analytica harvested data from 87 million Facebook users.
Then thereâs Equifax, which is also still under investigation from the FTC over a massive data breach that exposed the personal data of at least 145 million people, plus tens of thousands of passports, driverâs licenses, and other forms of ID. New FTC Chairman Joe Simons told Congress Thursday that the agency is still âheavily focusedâ on the Equifax probe.
Smith wonât have a hand in the FTCâs ongoing investigation into Equifax, but heâll still have a small role in the legacy of the breach. Last year, Smith testified before the US Senate on behalf of Equifax, where he argued that current regulations imposed on credit reporting bureaus are not only sufficient enough to protect consumers but in some cases present too much of a burden to comply with.
He argued the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau could subject Equifax and firms like it to âessentially continuous examination cyclesâ that would âexpend substantial resources responding to examiner requests.â Of course, that is something the company likely could have avoided if it didnât expose sensitive information of more than half of the countryâs adult population.
Now heâs is the head of one of the most powerful agencies for enforcing consumer protections, and heâll have to sit on the sidelines for the most important cases because heâs got a history full of undermining the FTCâs goals. Smith will recuse himself from dozens of cases, according to the New York Times, though heâs chosen not to disclose all of them. Think Progress reported the FTC declined to provide copies of Smithâs ethics paperwork that would potentially reveal his full list of conflicts.
If youâre thinking, âMaybe heâll use his expertise and insider knowledge about these companies to protect consumers,â go ahead and dispell yourself of that notion. Smith is exactly as he appears: a guy who has spent a solid chunk of his career trying to help companies push back against regulations and evade punishment. [ThinkProgress, New York Times]
latitude918 on May 18th, 2018 at 18:30 UTC »
Straight from the dictionary:
con·flict of in·ter·est
noun
a situation in which the concerns or aims of two different parties are incompatible.
"the conflict of interest between elected officials and corporate lobbyists"
a situation in which a person is in a position to derive personal benefit from actions or decisions made in their official capacity.
"Watson quit his job after questions about a possible conflict of interest"
brickmastur on May 18th, 2018 at 15:01 UTC »
Guessing he isn't gonna have any luck uncovering any leads.
Dekken_ on May 18th, 2018 at 14:52 UTC »
Wow convenient he should indict himself