FTC Staff Issues Report on Electric Power Regulatory Reform

Timothy J. Muris, Chairman of the Federal Trade Commission, will unveil the agency's Privacy Agenda on October 4, 2001 during a speech at the Privacy 2001 Conference in Cleveland, Ohio. The FTC's Privacy Agenda has been a topic of interest to consumers, industry, and association leaders since Muris was appointed in June.

Muris has extensive experience as a former FTC bureau director, academic, attorney, and economist on issues of concern to American consumers. He has spent the past four months meeting with agency staff, consumer groups, information technology executives, academics, and several trade association representatives on privacy issues. The Agenda announced on the 4th will represent the culmination of months of study and planning. Muris will describe the specifics of how the FTC plans to increase protection of consumer privacy in the market place by focusing on: telemarketing, spam, ID theft, and pretexting, as well as enforcement under the Fair Credit Reporting Act, the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act and the Telemarketing Sales Rule. He will also discuss his views on legislative activities.

Muris will be available to take questions from the press at two times and at two locations on October 4. Immediately following his speech, the Chairman will field media questions from 10:30 to 11:00 a.m. in the Rockefeller Room at the Renaissance Hotel in Cleveland, Ohio. For media located in Washington, D.C., Muris will conduct a remote press availability via a satellite downlink to Room 432 of the FTC from 11:30 a.m. to 12:00 p.m.

Text of the speech will be available on the FTC Web site at www.ftc.gov at 10:00 a.m. EST.