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Comment by akersten | Hacker News Reader

The 45-day thing is a minor tickle, I shouldn't have lead with it.

My point is that to me it feels like this Order is a huge overreach of authority, and whether you personally do or don't feel sympathy for a certain company does not change what the government should and should not be able to ask of a company in the general case.

Reading the document, the demands are wide and reaching. I would like to know how much of what they demand is actually part of the FTC's authority for what they are allowed to require companies to provide.

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It's absolutely not an "overreach." The FTC is actually starting to do their job after decades of letting industries consolidate. Congress should increase their budget so they can do more of it.

Frankly, the order is one step short of "copy your Shared drive to a hard disk and mail it to us, we'll take care of the rest."

I'm genuinely interested in what US Code permits the FTC to ask for such a trove of company information and strategy. My suspicion is that they're reaching. We can talk about whether we feel it's an overreach or not - you clearly feel the opposite of me - but I hope someone can chime in with the actual mandate or code.

It's in the press release:

>The FTC is issuing the orders under Section 6(b) of the FTC Act, which authorizes the Commission to conduct wide-ranging studies that do not have a specific law enforcement purpose.

My read of Section 6(b) (from [0]) is that it requires the FTC to prescribe specific questions for a company to answer:

> the Commission may prescribe annual or special, or both annual and special, reports or answers in writing to specific questions

I do not see how the requirements of part 12 of this Order are "specific questions," in fact they are quite broad to me. But I suppose that's for a lawyer to decide.

[0]: https://www.ftc.gov/sites/default/files/documents/statutes/f... (Control+F "Sec. 6")

“A Brief Overview of the Federal Trade Commission's Investigative, Law Enforcement, and Rulemaking Authority”

https://www.ftc.gov/about-ftc/what-we-do/enforcement-authori...

Personal opinion (don’t @me, I have zero credibility here):

They are looking to establish a new name for themselves with the public, and right now is the perfect time to do it.

“We’re taking big tech to task for the safety of our children! You’ve seen the headlines about what they’ve let happen under their watch! The FTC is here for you!”

Financial firms such as hedge funds have no issues with such orders, nor should social media have.

Please explain.

I am not sure what to explain here, every hedge fund is audited extensively, of course there are case's such as madoff, but in any way does this imply that virtually full transparency is not existent, what are you doing as organization, every email, every transaction can be and it is audited in many cases. Furthermore, if there are unusual trades, request will be made for explanation why this was the case.

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