MT SCOOP: CHAMBER OF COMMERCE ESCALATES FTC FIGHT — The U.S. Chamber of Commerce is ratcheting up its crusade against the FTC. Members have in recent weeks accused FTC Chair Lina Khan of abusing the agency's power and unfairly attacking American businesses. Now the group is taking its concerns to the Senate. The chamber is firing off a letter to senators today to urge them to kill, as part of the Senate process known as reconciliation, portions of the Build Back Better Act, H.R. 5376 (117), that would grant the FTC more civil penalty authority. These provisions "would unfairly erode due process and would impose significant new costs on companies acting in good faith when serving consumers," said the letter , which had almost 90 signatories, including the Interactive Advertising Bureau, the National Restaurant Association and Netchoice. "At a time when the Commission has demonstrated willingness to exceed its authority , such a policy change would be highly detrimental to legitimate businesses because the FTC would become the lawmaker, prosecutor, judge, and jury all at once, where businesses may never know which of their practices may later be adjudged to be illegal," the authors wrote. They added that smaller shops would bear the brunt of the FTC's actions, often without the resources to fight them. — Throwing more money at it: The chamber is also launching a six-figure ad campaign today to publicize what its members see as wrongdoing by the FTC. They hope the blitz will catch the attention of Senate Finance and Senate Commerce Committee lawmakers on both sides of the aisle. Even so, expect the FTC to keep putting up a fight. Khan's agency will not "back down because corporate lobbyists are making threats," spokesperson Lindsay Kryzak said last month in response to the chamber launching its offensive. "We will continue to do our job and stand up for consumers, honest businesses, workers and entrepreneurs who deserve a fair marketplace." — Speaking of the FTC: The agency holds its December open meeting today, with only one item on the agenda: a rulemaking to bar government and business impersonation, something that's a leading source of scams. Republican Christine Wilson, who has repeatedly said she doesn't support the FTC adopting new rules, will be the commissioner to watch. But if she were to make an exception for this issue — which has generally garnered bipartisan support in the past — it could suggest that Wilson, a noted privacy hawk, might also soften on other issues, such as an FTC privacy rulemaking next year. GROUPS VIE FOR IA'S SPOT — Who will speak for the internet industry, when the Internet Association dissolves at year's end? The association, which was making millions of dollars in revenue as recently as 2019 and branded itself as the "unified voice of the internet economy," had been steadily growing less influential on Capitol Hill amid paralyzing disputes among its members. But its formal death, scooped Tuesday by Emily, could signal a larger trend in Washington: internet companies competing so fiercely that they struggle to find any consensus. The tech policy landscape is fracturing, as small companies band together against the big ones and partisan tech groups gain greater prominence. — Small vs. big: The big tech companies have been beefing up their government affairs offices in recent years, taking a go-it-alone approach and agitating against one another as congressional efforts to rein in the power of Google, Facebook, Amazon and Apple heat up. — Breakdowns: There's a partisan breakdown happening in tech policy as well: the left-leaning Chamber of Progress and right-leaning NetChoice both represent the major tech companies, but they focus their advocacy on their own respective sides of the aisle, reflecting larger partisan splits in Washington. They believe they could replace IA by working together on certain issues. "While there is stark political division in Washington, NetChoice's work with allies like Chamber of Progress can ensure conflicting concerns raised by lawmakers about tech will be addressed," said Robert Winterton, director of public affairs with NetChoice. — The battle begins: TechNet, which counts Apple, Amazon and Google among its members alongside a cadre of smaller tech companies, is also vying to fill the vacuum. "We have 12 of the Internet Association members as a part of TechNet," said Linda Moore, TechNet's president. "I do expect that there's a good possibility that more of the Internet Association members will come to TechNet just as ones before them have that align with our policy principles." The president of the Computer and Communications Industry Association, Matt Schruers, said CCIA has always championed "competition policy that advances consumer's interests, in the U.S. and abroad." — More diffuse than ever: There's an "alphabet soup" of tech trade groups, each representing different slivers of the complicated industry, said Stewart Verdery, CEO and founder of Monument Advocacy, which counts Alphabet, Amazon and Netflix as clients. "IA was created because there wasn't a voice for the pure internet app economy," Verdery said. "There's some trade groups [that] are more obviously positioned to take up some of the slack, like NetChoice or CCIA. But there's still a gap." — Eyeballs watching emoji: Days after news broke of its departure from IA, Microsoft added a new outside lobbying firm to its long list already on retainer, according to a newly filed lobbying disclosure. The company retained Menda Fife of FifeStrategies at the beginning of December, POLITICO's Caitlin Oprysko reports . Fife, a former Senate Appropriations staffer, will lobby on policies and funding for the military's Integrated Visual Augmentation System and quantum technologies, the filing shows. Microsoft, which spent nearly $9.5 million on federal lobbying last year, currently retains more than two dozen other lobbying firms. | 
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