It's been a busy couple of weeks on the tech anti-trust front. Congress proposed new laws that would together gravely constrain the ability of Apple, Amazon, Google and Facebook to expand. "The bills — five in total — take direct aim at Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google and their grip on online commerce, information and entertainment," the New York Times reported June 11. "The proposals would make it easier to break up businesses that used their dominance in one area to get a stronghold in another, would create new hurdles for acquisitions of nascent rivals and would empower regulators."

Not all are likely to pass, but enough bipartisan support exists that some of the laws should survive.

But that wasn't the biggest antitrust news. The most shocking was the appointment of Lina Khan as chairwoman of the Federal Trade Commission. How did a 32-year-old law professor rise this quickly, and why is it so important?

Khan is best known for an article she penned for the Yale law review in 2017, "Amazon's Antitrust Paradox," in which she brilliantly reframed the anti-trust argument relative to the tech giants. According to Khan, "The current framework in antitrust — specifically its pegging competition to 'consumer welfare,' defined as short-term price effects — is unequipped to capture the architecture of market power in the modern economy."

Her appointment portends a shift in how society will deal with the network effect, the tendency of digital giants or standards to collect still more power and users the larger they become. (Put differently, the more friends you have who are on Facebook the more likely you are to join.)

The rise of the tech giants is unprecedented, and society's response is likely to be vigorous. As I've written before, however one might enjoy the products and services of these companies, it challenges common sense to have them dominate the economy.

That someone as visionary as Khan was appointed to a key regulatory position with bi-partisan support is a sign that digital anti-trust law, in the coming years, will be expanded in scope and more vigorously enforced.

Reach Isaac Cheifetz, a Twin Cities executive recruiter and strategic résumé consultant, via catalytic1.com.