Front and center is NYC's Consumer Protection Law of 1969, which contains a broad prohibition on "unconscionable" commercial practices:

repository.law.umich.edu/cgi/v…

There are many statute books that contain a law like this. For example, Section 5 of the Federal Trade Commission Act bans "unfair and deceptive" practices, and this rule is so useful that it was transposed, almost verbatim, into the statute that defines the Department of Transportation's powers:

pluralistic.net/2023/01/16/for…

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Now, this isn't carte blanche for enforcers to simply point at anything they don't like and declare it to be "unconscionable" or "unfair" or "deceptive" and shut it down. To use these powers, enforcers must first "develop a record" by getting feedback from the public about the problem. The normal way to do this is through "notice and comment," where you collect comments from anyone who wants to weigh in on the issue.

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Practically speaking, "anyone" turns out to be "lawyers and lobbyists working for industry," the only people who pay attention to these things and can navigate them.

When Khan was running the FTC, she launched plenty of notice and comment efforts, but she went much further, doing "listening tours" in which she and her officials and staff went to the people, traveling the country convening well-attended public meetings where everyday people got to weigh in on these issues.

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This is an incredibly powerful approach, because enforcers can only act to address the issues in the record, and if you only hear from lawyers and lobbyists, you can only act to address *their* concerns.

Remember when Mamdani was on the campaign trail and he went out and talked to street vendors about why halal cart food had gotten so expensive?

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It turns out that halal cart vendors each have to pay tens of thousands of dollars to economic parasites who've cornered the market on food cart licenses, which they rent out at exorbitant markups to vendors, who pass those costs onto New Yorkers every lunchtime:

documentedny.com/2025/11/04/ha…

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Zohran Mamdani to Street Vendors: I’m Listening  - Documented

Zohran Mamdani's promise to lower chicken-over-rice prices and reform vending permits has inspired a wave of grassroots organizing among the city's 23,000 street vendors.

^{Biplob Kumar Das (Documented)}

It's the kind of thing Khan did when she was at the FTC, identifying serious problems, seeking out the everyday people best suited to describing how the underlying scams hurt, and how they harmed everyday people:

pluralistic.net/2024/07/24/gou…

Khan's already picked out some "unconscionable" practices that the mayor has "standalone authority" to address: everything from hospitals that price gouge on over-the-counter pain meds to sports stadiums that gouge fans on hot dogs and beer.

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She's taking aim at "algorithmic pricing" (when companies use commercial surveillance data to determine whether you're desperate and raise prices to take advantage of that fact) and junk fees (where the price you pay goes *way* up at checkout time to pay for a bunch of vague "services" that you can't opt out of).

This is already making all the right people lose their minds, with screaming headlines about how this will "deliver a socialist agenda":

web.archive.org/web/2025111423…

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Mamdani’s transition leader reveals she’s looking for ways he can ‘unilaterally’ use NYC mayoral powers to deliver socialist agenda

All hail Chairman Zohran.

^{Craig McCarthy (New York Post)}

In a long-form interview with Jon Stewart, Khan goes deep on her regulatory philosophy and the way she's going to bring the same fire she brought to the most effective FTC since the Carter administration to Mamdani's historic administration of New York City, a municipality with a population and economy that's larger than many US states and foreign nations:

youtube.com/watch?v=vRJWM_3OW2…

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Lina Khan On Zohran Mamdani, Corporate Welfare & the FTC | The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart

In the wake of Zohran Mamdani’s historic election in New York City, Jon is joined by Lina Khan, former Chair of the Federal Trade Commission and newly appoin...

^{The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart (YouTube)}

One important aspect of Khan's work that she is always at pains to stress is *deterrence*. When an enforcer acts against a company that is scamming and preying upon the public, their private finances and internal communications become a matter of public record. Employees and executives have to be painstakingly instructed and monitored so that they don't say anything that will prejudice their cases. All this happens *irrespective* of the eventual outcome of the case.

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Remember: we're at the tail end of a 40-year experiment in tolerance and encouragements for monopolies and corporate predation. Those lost generations saw the construction of a massive edifice of bad case-law and judicial intuition. Smashing that wall won't happen overnight. There will be a lot of losses. But when the process is (part of) the punishment, the mere existence of someone like Khan in a position of power can terrify companies into being on their best behavior.

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