Take a seat

President Biden will nominate privacy advocate Alvaro Bedoya for a seat on the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), the White House announced Monday.

Bedoya’s background: Bedoya, a Georgetown Law professor and the founding director of the school’s Center on Privacy & Technology, will be filling a spot set to be vacated since Biden nominated Commissioner Rohit Chopra to lead the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

Before Bedoya founded the privacy center, he served as the first chief counsel to the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Privacy, Technology and the Law.

The nomination comes as the FTC continues to take aim at tech giants and their market power.

A warm welcome: Anti-monopoly group American Economic Liberties Project cheered Bedoya’s nomination to the FTC.

“Bedoya has spearheaded important research into surveillance and shined a light on the ways this technology is used to exploit and endanger communities of color. As a commissioner, we expect him to be an aggressive advocate against corporate concentration and monopoly,” executive director Sarah Miller said in a statement.

FTC Chair Lina Khan, another Biden nominee to the commission, congratulated Bedoya on his nomination.

“Alvaro’s expertise on surveillance and data security and his longstanding commitment to public service would be enormously valuable to the Commission as we work to meet this moment of tremendous need and opportunity. I wish him the very best in his confirmation process,” Khan said in a statement.