Courts should be careful about using privacy-related remedies in antitrust cases because enforcement goals differ in the two policy areas, former FTC Commissioner Maureen Ohlhausen said Wednesday during the Future of Privacy Forum’s DC Privacy Forum 2025.
FTC Privacy Enforcement
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is the primary enforcer of privacy laws in the U.S., using consent decrees, lawsuits and rulemaking to address unfair or deceptive data practices. The agency’s actions influence how companies design privacy programs, handle consumer data and respond to complaints. This page highlights major cases, policy updates, and enforcement patterns at the FTC that shape the U.S. privacy landscape.
FTC Commissioner Alvaro Bedoya on Monday announced his resignation but said he will remain a plaintiff in a lawsuit against President Donald Trump’s recent firings of himself and Commissioner Rebecca Kelly Slaughter (see 2505230044).
Former FTC Chair Lina Khan met with members on Capitol Hill on Tuesday.
23andMe defended its planned sale in a statement to us Tuesday, decrying a lawsuit and separate objection filed Monday by a bipartisan group of nearly 30 state attorneys general. The AGs opposed the proposed sale of collected genetic information without each customer's consent. Founder Anne Wojcicki and interim CEO Joe Selsavage defended the company's privacy practices during a House Oversight Committee hearing Tuesday.
State privacy investigators are in constant contact about potential enforcement action that goes beyond the recently launched bipartisan consortium (see 2504160037), privacy officials from California, Colorado and Texas said.
The FTC is exploring statutory authorities for stopping pornography websites from illegally sharing content with children, FTC Chairman Andrew Ferguson said Wednesday. The agency recently consulted EU enforcers and is also focused on new authorities under the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), he said during an agency workshop.
Julie Brill, chief privacy officer and corporate vice president for Global Privacy, Safety, and Regulatory Affairs at Microsoft, will step down from her full-time role in July, she said in a LinkedIn post Friday. Brill said she will launch a consultancy in September with Microsoft as her first client. Before her time at Microsoft, Brill was a commissioner at the FTC, and later was part of the privacy and cybersecurity practice at Hogan Lovells.
A federal court shouldn’t force Google to share users’ personal data in DOJ’s monopoly lawsuit against the company, the Competitive Enterprise Institute said Thursday.
Louisiana’s Senate Commerce Committee on Wednesday passed HB-570, an app store age-verification bill that has pitted Apple and Google against Meta and X (see 2505280065).
President Donald Trump on Tuesday filed an appeal seeking a stay against a federal court’s ruling reinstating fired members of the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board (see 2505210073).