* Encourages the FTC to ban or limit non-compete agreements.
* Encourages the FTC to ban unnecessary occupational licensing restrictions that impede economic mobility.
* Encourages the FTC and DOJ to strengthen antitrust guidance to prevent employers from collaborating to suppress wages or reduce benefits by sharing wage and benefit information with one another.
* Directs the Food and Drug Administration to work with states and tribes to safely import prescription drugs from Canada, pursuant to the Medicare Modernization Act of 2003.
* Directs the Health and Human Services Administration (HHS) to increase support for generic and biosimilar drugs, which provide low-cost options for patients.
* Directs HHS to issue a comprehensive plan within 45 days to combat high prescription drug prices and price gouging.
* Encourages the FTC to ban “pay for delay” and similar agreements by rule.
* Directs HHS to consider issuing proposed rules within 120 days for allowing hearing aids to be sold over the counter.
* Underscores that hospital mergers can be harmful to patients and encourages the Justice Department and FTC to review and revise their merger guidelines to ensure patients are not harmed by such mergers.
* Directs HHS to support existing hospital price transparency rules and to finish implementing bipartisan federal legislation to address surprise hospital billing.
* Directs HHS to standardize plan options in the National Health Insurance Marketplace so people can comparison shop more easily.
* Directs the DOT to consider issuing clear rules requiring the refund of fees when baggage is delayed or when service isn’t actually provided—like when the plane’s WiFi or in-flight entertainment system is broken.
* Directs the DOT to consider issuing rules that require baggage, change, and cancellation fees to be clearly disclosed to the customer.
* Encourages the Surface Transportation Board to require railroad track owners to provide rights of way to passenger rail and to strengthen their obligations to treat other freight companies fairly.
* Encourages the Federal Maritime Commission to ensure vigorous enforcement against shippers charging American exporters exorbitant charges.
* Directs USDA to consider issuing new rules under the Packers and Stockyards Act making it easier for farmers to bring and win claims, stopping chicken processors from exploiting and underpaying chicken farmers, and adopting anti-retaliation protections for farmers who speak out about bad practices.
* Directs USDA to consider issuing new rules defining when meat can bear “Product of USA” labels, so that consumers have accurate, transparent labels that enable them to choose products made here.
* Directs USDA to develop a plan to increase opportunities for farmers to access markets and receive a fair return, including supporting alternative food distribution systems like farmers markets and developing standards and labels so that consumers can choose to buy products that treat farmers fairly.
* Encourages the FTC to limit powerful equipment manufacturers from restricting people’s ability to use independent repair shops or do DIY repairs—such as when tractor companies block farmers from repairing their own tractors.
* Encourages the FTC to prevent ISPs from making deals with landlords that limit tenants’ choices.
* Encourages the FTC to revive the “Broadband Nutrition Label” and require providers to report prices and subscription rates to the FCC.
* Encourages the FTC to limit excessive early termination fees.
* Encourages the FTC to restore Net Neutrality rules undone by the prior administration.
* Announces an Administration policy of greater scrutiny of mergers, especially by dominant internet platforms, with particular attention to the acquisition of nascent competitors, serial mergers, the accumulation of data, competition by “free” products, and the effect on user privacy.
* Encourages the FTC to establish rules on surveillance and the accumulation of data.
* Encourages the FTC to establish rules barring unfair methods of competition on internet marketplaces.
* Encourages the FTC to issue rules against anticompetitive restrictions on using independent repair shops or doing DIY repairs of your own devices and equipment.
* Encourages DOJ and the agencies responsible for banking (the Federal Reserve, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency) to update guidelines on banking mergers to provide more robust scrutiny of mergers.
* Encourages the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) to issue rules allowing customers to download their banking data and take it with them.
My understanding is that the "encourages" part relates to agencies that are independent and are therefore not directly under the control of the president. He therefore cannot directly order them to do anything.
However, from what I could gather from news interviews, this has not been published without the collaboration from those agencies, who in general are on board with the changes.
Correct, the President is actually fairly limited in how much control they exert over regulatory agencies -- such agencies are created by Congress, commissioners are nominated by the President and confirmed by Congress, and commissioners report back to Congress.
It's an executive order, there is only so much the President can mandate outside of the organizations he controls. Look at most of Trump's presidency, feckless EO's that in the end were reversed anyway or were blocked by a court. My guess is that the goal here is to have the regulating authorities be "encouraged" to put the screws to some of these big-X companies. In other words, have them set their policies based on the general direction given by the President. I think that's probably normal operation.
A more cynical view is that the goal is to make it seem like the administration is trying to follow through with some campaign promises while not doing much of legwork to actually do it.
It takes very little to issue an EO. It takes more to work with colleagues in congress to actually implement some of the stuff laid out here. Biden's predecessor really laid the framework here and turned it into an artform - issue a worthless EO, get a great photo op and some feel good stories in the media, then everyone forgets why they can't figure out hospital prices in a few weeks again.
For some more context, it is within Biden's power to appoint an assistant attorney general for antitrust, but as of last week, he still hasn't [0]. I'm not sure how serious this rhetoric around strengthening antitrust guidance really is, in light of that.
I'd love to be proven wrong, but I think this administration has earned my skepticism. Time will tell.
> * Encourages the FTC to restore Net Neutrality rules undone by the prior administration.
This is the worst thing in the list. The politicians still don't seem to understand how the internet works and how different service types cost differently and have different effects on the network. A new Netflix-like service is a very different thing than a new social-network-like service.
You don’t seem to understand. If I have 100 mbps down speed, my ISP should have no say in how I use it. If it is Netflix of Facebook, it doesn’t matter. It’s my 100 mbps. That is like saying that my electric provider should have a say on what I use my electricity for. That if I use a GE brand washer it costs less per kwh than a Samsung, or that electricity for a computer is more expensive per kwh than electricity for a refrigerator. No. They give me the electricity, I decide how to use it. They give me the internet bandwidth, I decide how to use it.
Net neutrality never was about you though, it's about the companies sending content to you.
Electricity has absolutely no comparison to network traffic. That's a fundamental misunderstanding of how networks work. A packet coming from the other side of the world costs, fundamentally, a very different amount from a packet coming from nearby.
> A packet coming from the other side of the world costs, fundamentally, a very different amount from a packet coming from nearby.
But you were not talking about the distance a packet travels. You specifically said “A new Netflix-like service is a very different thing than a new social-network-like service” which, other things like location being equal, is not true. Getting 100 mbps of “Netflix like” traffic is not different than getting 100 mbps of “social network” traffic. The content doesn’t matter.
I was wrong about you not understanding. Clearly you do understand and are arguing in bad faith and attempting to misrepresent the issue. Since “packet distance” has never been part of the issue of ISPs trying to be able to discriminate based on content, either the company providing it (Netflix vs Hulu vs Prime Video) or based on the category of content (music vs social media vs messaging). None of those have anything to do with packet distances, which you clearly understood when you were originally were speaking about content categories. But you then tried to use a more technical and pedantic, but irrelevant, issue to obfuscate the actual argument.
I'm not going to bother to exlpain anymore. The FAANG companies have twisted this conversation so much into knots that the average person doesn't know that they're actually been turned into sock puppets for the FAANG companies to argue for legislation that is purely for the benefit of those FAANG companies so they are not required to pay the ISPs for data transit.
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases...
In the Order, the President:
* Encourages the FTC to ban or limit non-compete agreements.
* Encourages the FTC to ban unnecessary occupational licensing restrictions that impede economic mobility.
* Encourages the FTC and DOJ to strengthen antitrust guidance to prevent employers from collaborating to suppress wages or reduce benefits by sharing wage and benefit information with one another.
* Directs the Food and Drug Administration to work with states and tribes to safely import prescription drugs from Canada, pursuant to the Medicare Modernization Act of 2003.
* Directs the Health and Human Services Administration (HHS) to increase support for generic and biosimilar drugs, which provide low-cost options for patients.
* Directs HHS to issue a comprehensive plan within 45 days to combat high prescription drug prices and price gouging.
* Encourages the FTC to ban “pay for delay” and similar agreements by rule.
* Directs HHS to consider issuing proposed rules within 120 days for allowing hearing aids to be sold over the counter.
* Underscores that hospital mergers can be harmful to patients and encourages the Justice Department and FTC to review and revise their merger guidelines to ensure patients are not harmed by such mergers.
* Directs HHS to support existing hospital price transparency rules and to finish implementing bipartisan federal legislation to address surprise hospital billing.
* Directs HHS to standardize plan options in the National Health Insurance Marketplace so people can comparison shop more easily.
* Directs the DOT to consider issuing clear rules requiring the refund of fees when baggage is delayed or when service isn’t actually provided—like when the plane’s WiFi or in-flight entertainment system is broken.
* Directs the DOT to consider issuing rules that require baggage, change, and cancellation fees to be clearly disclosed to the customer.
* Encourages the Surface Transportation Board to require railroad track owners to provide rights of way to passenger rail and to strengthen their obligations to treat other freight companies fairly.
* Encourages the Federal Maritime Commission to ensure vigorous enforcement against shippers charging American exporters exorbitant charges.
* Directs USDA to consider issuing new rules under the Packers and Stockyards Act making it easier for farmers to bring and win claims, stopping chicken processors from exploiting and underpaying chicken farmers, and adopting anti-retaliation protections for farmers who speak out about bad practices.
* Directs USDA to consider issuing new rules defining when meat can bear “Product of USA” labels, so that consumers have accurate, transparent labels that enable them to choose products made here.
* Directs USDA to develop a plan to increase opportunities for farmers to access markets and receive a fair return, including supporting alternative food distribution systems like farmers markets and developing standards and labels so that consumers can choose to buy products that treat farmers fairly.
* Encourages the FTC to limit powerful equipment manufacturers from restricting people’s ability to use independent repair shops or do DIY repairs—such as when tractor companies block farmers from repairing their own tractors.
* Encourages the FTC to prevent ISPs from making deals with landlords that limit tenants’ choices.
* Encourages the FTC to revive the “Broadband Nutrition Label” and require providers to report prices and subscription rates to the FCC.
* Encourages the FTC to limit excessive early termination fees.
* Encourages the FTC to restore Net Neutrality rules undone by the prior administration.
* Announces an Administration policy of greater scrutiny of mergers, especially by dominant internet platforms, with particular attention to the acquisition of nascent competitors, serial mergers, the accumulation of data, competition by “free” products, and the effect on user privacy.
* Encourages the FTC to establish rules on surveillance and the accumulation of data.
* Encourages the FTC to establish rules barring unfair methods of competition on internet marketplaces.
* Encourages the FTC to issue rules against anticompetitive restrictions on using independent repair shops or doing DIY repairs of your own devices and equipment.
* Encourages DOJ and the agencies responsible for banking (the Federal Reserve, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency) to update guidelines on banking mergers to provide more robust scrutiny of mergers.
* Encourages the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) to issue rules allowing customers to download their banking data and take it with them.