https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2024/08/project-2025-eeoc-disability-workplace-discrimination-justice-department-consent-decree/

Conservative attacks on #consentdecrees are not exactly new. “We’ve certainly seen pushes to either limit, restrict or get rid of consent decrees in agencies in prior administrations,” Wakschlag says. The Trump administration, notably, put a near ban in place on consent decrees between the Department of Justice and police departments that aimed to address #policebrutality.

#USA #Privacy #FTC #Google #Meta #BigTech #ConsentDecrees #BigTech: "WIRED interviews with 20 current and former employees of Meta and Google who worked on privacy initiatives show that internal reviews forced by consent decrees have sometimes blocked unnecessary harvesting and access of users’ data. But current and former privacy workers, from low-level staff to top executives, increasingly view the agreements as outdated and inadequate. Their hope is that US lawmakers engineer a solution that helps authorities keep pace with advances in technology and constrain the behavior of far more companies.

Congress does not look likely to act soon, leaving the privacy of hundreds of millions of people who entrust personal data to Google and Meta backstopped by the two consent decrees, static barriers of last resort serving into an ever-dynamic era of big tech dominance they were never designed to contain. The FTC is undertaking an ambitious effort to modernize its deal with Meta, but appeals by the company could drag the process out for years and kill the prospect of future decrees."

https://www.wired.com/story/google-consent-decree-ftc-broken-privacy-protections/

From a forthcoming paper by Simcha Barkai, presented at the Stigler Center's#antitrust conference. This is data from every antitrust enforcement action since 1971. Note that nearly NONE of the enforcement actions brought relate to consent decree violations.

#ConsentDecrees are #bullshit.