In an op-ed for The Hill, Justin Brookman writes that "through purposeful policy choices made over decades" the Federal Trade Commission "has been deliberately set up to fail consumers" by Congress. Brookman points to the FTC's $5 billion settlement with Facebook as the prime example of how Congress has weakened the FTC's regulatory power. According to Brookman, the FTC's "primary privacy enforcement tool is a blanket consumer-protection statute" based on unfair or deceptive acts or practices. Congress pared the definition of unfair down to "harmful,"  which Brookman said makes privacy violations "not only difficult to detect, but even harder to quantify." Brookman added Congress can rectify its weakening of the FTC in many ways, including passing a federal privacy law, simply empowering the FTC or calling for greater transparency among companies.
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