Eileen Harrington
Eileen Harrington, an attorney, is Deputy Director of the Federal Trade Commission’s Bureau of Consumer Protection. The Bureau of Consumer Protection’s mandate is to protect consumers from deceptive, unfair, or fraudulent practices. The Bureau enforces a variety of consumer protection laws enacted by Congress, as well as trade regulation rules issued by the Commission. Its actions include individual company and industry-wide investigations, administrative and federal court litigation, rulemaking proceedings, and consumer and business education. In addition, the Bureau contributes to the Commission’s on-going efforts to inform Congress and other government entities of the impact that proposed actions could have on consumers.
Ms. Harrington joined the FTC as Assistant Director for Marketing Practices in 1987, and served as Associate Director for Marketing Practices from 1991 to 2005. In that role, she led the Commission’s consumer fraud law enforcement effort, and oversaw some of its most visible regulatory work, including the National Do Not Call initiative and implementation of the CAN-SPAM Act. In 1997, President Clinton conferred on Ms. Harrington the rank of Distinguished Executive in the Senior Executive Service for "sustained extraordinary accomplishments" in organizing and leading interagency enforcement, education and regulatory efforts to halt consumer fraud. In 2004, she was awarded a Service to America Medal for her work on the National Do Not Call Registry.