politics

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: Sen. Elizabeth Warren has an idea for a new federal agency that takes on some of the most powerful and valuable companies in the world, aiming to protect consumers from their abusive business practices.

You’d be forgiven for assuming I’m referring to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the federal agency that Warren is largely and deservedly credited with creating. No, this is about a new bill that would create another new agency: the Digital Consumer Protection Commission Act, or DCPC. Whereas the CFPB took on Big Banking, the DCPC aims to take on Big Tech, with a dedicated and specialized agency empowered to promulgate and enforce new regulations. Warren believes it will address some of Big Tech’s greatest harms, which the US has thus far failed to rein in any other way.

“Big Tech giants exploit people’s data, invade Americans’ privacy, and crush competition,” Warren told me in an interview. “The tech industry has shut down every attempt to regulate it or impose liability on it.” She added: “Enough is enough. We cannot let a handful of unelected Big Tech billionaires govern our lives and govern our democracy.”

Warren’s push for another new agency comes as we’re seeing what appears to be plenty of justification for its existence. Digital privacy and Big Tech-focused antitrust bills have largely fizzled out, despite bipartisan support for them. Congress is currently mulling over bills about online children’s safety and TikTok as a potential national security threat that may never get close to passing. On the rare occasions when these companies are held to account, even the largest fines levied against them are little more than rounding errors, easily shrugged off as the cost of doing business.

We’re also seeing what may be the limits of what our existing agencies can do. The FTC’s attempt to block Microsoft’s acquisition of video game giant Activision was recently defeated in court. The Department of Justice’s antitrust trial against Google over its search engine dominance just began, kicking off a wave of Big Tech antitrust lawsuits that will test if and how existing antitrust laws can be applied to these digital platforms. If they can’t, perhaps that will finally make the case for a new agency that can.

“People get what’s wrong. And they also get that Congress is not responding,” Warren said, adding: “Congress is slow and deliberative. The agencies can be more nimble. But to do that, they need expertise.”