It is reported that the US White House is withdrawing its nomination of Ryan Baasch for a Federal Trade Commission seat and instead naming him deputy director of the National Economic Council, elevating his role in shaping tech, telecom and competition policy. Baasch will serve as deputy assistant to President Trump and replace Robin Colwell at the NEC, which advises on economic policy. The move comes as President Trump seeks greater influence over agencies and tech regulation following his firing of two Democratic FTC commissioners in March 2025. In his previous role as Texas Attorney General, Baasch oversaw a series of privacy suits against Google and Meta Platforms over the tech giants’ use of facial recognition technology, as well as Google’s harvesting of consumers’ location information and other personal data through the “Incognito” private browsing mode in the Chrome browser. Under Baasch, Texas also brought ongoing privacy litigation against General Motors and Allstate over the alleged illegal sharing of personal data between carmakers, insurance companies and data analytics companies.
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