Blog

So you’ve received a Civil Investigative Demand (CID) from the Federal Trade Commission related to a consumer protection matter. Now what? We appreciate that it can be daunting for any company – especially a small business – and we want to be as transparent as possible about the process. Here are questions we’ve heard from businesses that have received CIDs and answers we hope shed some light on our procedures. (By the way, these FAQs apply to...

Last week, I spoke about a topic that has attracted a lot of popular interest in antitrust enforcement lately—vertical merger enforcement. We view vertical mergers as an important part of the FTC’s enforcement agenda. However, it is true that, relative to horizontal mergers, vertical mergers are a smaller part of the workload of the FTC and the DOJ’s Antitrust Division. I wanted to address that difference by discussing three issues: (1) what are...

When Acting Chairman Ohlhausen launched the FTC’s Economic Liberty Task Force in early 2017 to shine a spotlight on occupational licensing, the goal was not only to advocate for needed reforms. She also wanted to give a voice to the millions of American workers and consumers – especially military families – whose lives and livelihoods are impacted by misguided policies. Unnecessary licensing requirements affect workers throughout the economy and...

Some people say charity begins at home. But for telemarketers, truthful information about charity begins on the phone. That’s the message of an FTC settlement with InfoCision, an Ohio-based for-profit telemarketer that solicits contributions on behalf of well-known charities. If you represent professional charity fundraisers or have an affiliation with charitable organizations that ask for money by phone, it could be time for a Telemarketing...

The FTC’s fight against the deceptive marketing of unproven cancer treatments goes back to the early days of the agency , and it’s disappointing that we still need to bring cases of that nature. But you can add the FTC’s settlement with Florida-based CellMark Biopharma and CEO Derek Vest to that list – and the deceptive claims they pitched to people battling cancer are particularly disconcerting. Two serious complications of cancer treatment are...

Car ads used to include shorthand like 2D, AWD, and AC. Today’s car buyer is just as likely to ask about USB, GPS, and wifi. Last June, the FTC and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) hosted a workshop in Washington to discuss the types of information that connected and autonomous cars collect and the ways the data can be used. FTC staff just issued a Staff Perspective that outlines key takeaways from the workshop. You’ll...

We can’t guarantee its effectiveness in getting kids to eat their vegetables or finish their homework. But there’s one circumstance in which a Mom or Dad’s “Because I said so . . . .” is the law of the land. When it comes to the online collection of personal information from kids under 13, the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Rule (COPPA) puts parents in charge. An FTC lawsuit against VTech, a big name in electronic learning products for the...

Multi-level marketers sell a wide variety of products and services and they structure their companies in different ways. But there’s a lodestar that all industry members can use to navigate through issues that may arise – and here it is: Core consumer protection principles apply to all MLMs. FTC staff has just released business guidance to help MLMs apply those core principles to their business practices. The document addresses questions like...

Because the FTC’s consumer protection and competition missions cut across so many technology industries, some call it the “Federal Technology Commission.” With only a few exceptions, the FTC protects consumers and competition across the entire economy. Technology now pervades every industry, so we constantly encounter new technologies as part of our job. See the bottom of this post for an extensive list, with links to examples, of technologies...

You’ve seen the sentence in FTC news releases or blog posts: “The order includes a $__ million financial remedy.” So how do provisions like that translate into real help for real consumers? That’s the subject of the FTC Bureau of Consumer Protection’s Office of Claims and Refunds Annual Report. Covering the period between July 1, 2016 and June 30, 2017, the Report recaps how FTC cases resulted in orders that returned billions back to consumers...