'Unthinkable': Trump FTC chair shuts down public comments on corporate pricing tactics

U.S. President Donald Trump's Federal Trade Commission chair began his stint at the helm of the key agency this week by shutting down requests for public comment on corporate surveillance pricing and other exploitative tactics that were a focus of the FTC under the leadership of Lina Khan.

Shortly after taking over as FTC chair earlier this week, Andrew Ferguson declared that "DEI is over" at the agency and demanded a swift vote on a motion giving him sweeping authority to "comply with President Trump's orders ending DEI across the federal government."

Meanwhile, with no such fanfare, Ferguson shuttered FTC requests for information and public comments on corporate mergers and acquisitions, "protecting workers from illegal business practices," "predatory pricing," and "surveillance pricing practices," which refer to companies' use of personal data to set individualized prices.

Democratic FTC commissioners expressed alarm over Ferguson's early actions and said they're a telling indication of his priorities.

"Andrew Ferguson could have made his first public act as chairman a motion to study the rising cost of groceries," Commissioner Alvaro Bedoya said in a statement Thursday. "He could have acted on a pending public petition from a group of wall and ceiling contractors to investigate how lawbreaking contractors can effectively rig contract competitions in the commercial construction industry."

"Chairman Ferguson could have done any number of things to actually lower the cost of living and create opportunities for American businesses and workers. He did none of them," Bedoya continued. "Instead, he canceled 'DEI.'"

Douglas Farrar, former director of the FTC's public affairs office, said it is "unthinkable that the new chair of the FTC starts his tenure by censoring small businesses facing down monopolies, and American consumers already struggling with high prices."

"The American people deserve to have a voice in government," Farrar added, "not just be dictated to by oligarchs."

Ferguson defended his focus on DEI on the grounds that Trump "campaigned openly" on ending diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives across the federal government.

But Bedoya noted that Trump, on the day of his inauguration, also ordered "the heads of all executive departments and agencies to deliver emergency price relief, consistent with applicable law, to the American people and increase the prosperity of the American worker."

"Chairman Ferguson seems uninterested in the challenges that regular human beings face," Bedoya said Thursday. "One of his first actions as Chairman was to quietly remove the opportunity for the public to comment on five different requests for information."

"Rather than let the American people speak to him," Bedoya added, "Chairman Ferguson shut them out."