FTC's Ramirez Nominated for New Term

President Barack Obama has nominated Edith Ramirez to a second term on the Federal Trade Commission.

Ramirez has been a commissioner since 2010 and chair since 2013. "It gives me great confidence that such dedicated and capable individuals will serve the American people as part of this Administration," said President Obama of that and other nominations he is submitting to the Senate for confirmation.

Ramirez succeeded then chairman Jon Leibowitz. She was a Harvard Law School colleague of President Obama and reportedly handled Latino outreach for his 2008 race.

High on the FTC's current to do list is to work with the European Union to come up with a new voluntary "safe harbor" agreement for protecting cross-border data flows. An EU court invalidated the current agreement in the wake of leaks about government data surveillance, concluding the U.S. could not uphold its end of privacy protections under the agreement.

John Eggerton

Contributing editor John Eggerton has been an editor and/or writer on media regulation, legislation and policy for over four decades, including covering the FCC, FTC, Congress, the major media trade associations, and the federal courts. In addition to Multichannel News and Broadcasting + Cable, his work has appeared in Radio World, TV Technology, TV Fax, This Week in Consumer Electronics, Variety and the Encyclopedia Britannica.