WASHINGTON, D.C. — At a Washington Reporter event sponsored by the Coalition for App Fairness on Monday, February 24, 2025, new Federal Trade Commission (FTC) Chairman outlined his approach to antitrust and previewed the FTC’s agenda for the coming year. The state of online competition and mobile app marketplaces were one of several important topics discussed, with Chairman Ferguson making forceful declarations that free and competitive online markets are vital drivers of growth and innovation.
The video of the event is HERE. Over the course of the discussion, Chairman Ferguson emphasized the importance of antitrust enforcement to foster innovation and a vibrant marketplace of ideas.
Competition, Innovation, and Growth
“If you get vigorous antitrust enforcement, you get more innovation. I think antitrust enforcers need to care about the potential losses in innovation when they’re prioritizing how they expend resources.”
“When the economy is vibrant, new ideas come to the fore, they can get marketed very quickly. Those ideas can be revolutionary, they can compound growth in ways you couldn’t imagine before the ideas arise. Competition is how we as Americans make sure that these ideas can get out of the heads of genius Americans and out to the markets.”
“We must take into account potential loss of innovation and loss of consumer choice.”
“My job is to use antitrust laws to suppress monopoly power to promote innovation.”
Competition Legislation
“There have been lawsuits over threats to innovation on the two major platforms for app developers. I am generally of the view that if Congress thinks that our generally stated antitrust laws are insufficient to hit a particular problem, the best way to approach that is not to put informal pressure on the antitrust enforcers to try to get at the problem, it’s to pass specific laws.”
Big Tech Accountability and Power
“We (Republicans) are small government in the sense that we don’t want an over-awe-inspiring powerful federal government picking winners and losers, but we don’t want to replace a large government with giant monopolies that get to do the same thing in our economics system.”
“Similarly, you need very vigorous, very intentional antitrust enforcement to make sure that we don’t replace big state apparatus with giant monopolies that end up being able to pick winners and losers, suppress innovation, and deprive us all of the benefits of our free-enterprise society.”
“I think that President Trump got it right in the first term. We need to enforce our competition and consumer protection laws very vigorously across the economy. I think that matters most in places like Big Tech because we all interact with Big Tech, and we saw, in 2020, what can happen when market power is converted to social and political power.”
“If market power is being exercised in a way that violates antitrust laws, or businesses are using their power to violate consumer protection laws… That absolutely should matter for antitrust enforcers (if market power is being converted to social and political power).”
“We must take into account potential loss of innovation and loss of consumer choice.”
Chairman Ferguson’s remarks emphasized a commitment to fostering competition, protecting innovation, and addressing the dominance of major tech companies like Apple and Google in the mobile app marketplace.
The Coalition for App Fairness looks forward to working with the FTC and the Trump administration to advocate for fair competition and freedom of choice in the mobile app ecosystem.