The Federal Trade Commission ( FTC ) is an independent body of the United States government, established in 1914 by the Federal Trade Commission Act. Its main mission is the promotion of consumer protection and the elimination and prevention of anticompetitive business practices, such as coercive monopolies.
The Federal Trade Commission Act is one of President Woodrow Wilson's principal acts against trust. Trust and dissipation of trust was a significant political problem during the Progressive Era. From the outset, the FTC has enacted the Clayton Act, key antitrust laws, and the provisions of the FTC Act, 15 US. 41 et seq. Over time, the FTC has been delegated with enforcement of additional business regulatory legislation and has announced a number of regulations (codified in Title 16 of the Federal Code of Regulations).
Video Federal Trade Commission
Legislative development
Following the Supreme Court's decision on Standard Oil and American Tobacco in May 1911, the first version of the bill to establish a commission to regulate interstate commerce was introduced on January 25, 1912, by Oklahoma congressman Dick Thompson Morgan. He would make the first speech on the floor of the House advocating its formation on February 21, 1912. Although the initial bill did not pass, the questions of trust and antitrust dominated the 1912 elections. Most platforms of political parties in 1912 supported the creation of a federal trade commission with its regulatory powers placed in the hands of the administrative council, as an alternative to previous functions and always carried out very slowly through the courts.
With the 1912 presidential election deciding to support the Democrats and Woodrow Wilson, Morgan reintroduced a slightly amended version of his bill during a special session of April 1913. The national debate culminated in Wilson's signing of the FTC Act on 26 September, Clayton's Anti-Puncture Act three weeks later. The new Federal Trade Commission will absorb the staff and duties of the Corporate Bureau, previously established under the Department of Trade and Labor in 1903. The FTC may also challenge "unfair competition methods" and impose a more specific ban on Clayton's Law against a certain price. discrimination, vertical arrangement, interlocking directorate, and stock acquisition.
Maps Federal Trade Commission
Current membership
The following table lists commissioners as of May 2018.
List of former commissioners
The recent ex-commissioners are:
Bureaus
Consumer Protection Bureau
The Mandate of the Consumer Protection Bureau is to protect consumers from unfair or deceptive acts or practices in the trade. With the written approval of the Commission, the Bureau's lawyers enforce federal laws relating to consumer affairs and the rules announced by the FTC. Its functions include investigation, enforcement, and consumer and business education. Areas of interest to the firm are: advertising and marketing, financial products and practices, telemarketing fraud, privacy and identity protection, etc. The Bureau is also responsible for the National Do Not Call Registry of the United States.
Under the FTC Act, the Commission has the authority, in many cases, to bring its actions in federal court through its own advisors. In some consumer protection issues, the FTC emerges with, or endorses, the US Department of Justice.
Competition Bureau
The Bureau of Competition is the FTC division accused of undermining and preventing "anti-competitive" business practices. This solves this through antitrust enforcement, review of proposed mergers, and investigation of other non-merger business practices that may disrupt competition. Such non-merger practices include horizontal restraints, involving agreements between direct competitors, and vertical restrictions, involving agreements between businesses at different levels in the same industry (such as suppliers and commercial buyers).
The FTC shares antitrust law enforcement with the Department of Justice. However, while the FTC is responsible for antitrust civil law enforcement, the Antitrust Division of the Department of Justice has the power to bring civil and criminal action in antitrust issues.
Economic Bureau
The Economic Bureau was established to support the Bureau of Competition and Consumer Protection by providing expert knowledge relating to the economic impact of the law and FTC operations.
Activity
The FTC investigates issues raised by reports from consumers and businesses, submission of pre-merger notices, congressional inquiries, or reports in the media. These issues include, for example, false advertising and other forms of fraud. FTC investigations may relate to one company or the entire industry. If the investigation results reveal unlawful conduct, the FTC may seek voluntary compliance by the infringing business through an approval order, file an administrative complaint, or initiate federal litigation.
Traditionally administrative grievances were heard before an independent administrative judge (ALJ) with an FTC staff acting as a prosecutor. This case is reviewed by de novo by a full FTC commission which can then appeal to the US Court of Appeals and finally to the Supreme Court.
Under the FTC Act, federal courts maintain their traditional authority to issue equitable assistance, including the appointment of recipients, monitors, imposition of asset freezes to guard against embezzlement, direct access to business premises for evidence storage, and other assistance. including quick financial discovery and discovery. In many cases, the FTC uses this authority to combat serious fraud or consumer fraud. In addition, the FTC has put aside power to overcome concerns about practices across the industry. The rules enacted under this authority are known as the Trading Rules .
In the mid-1990s, the FTC launched a fraud sweeping concept in which its federal, state, and local agencies and partners filed simultaneous legal action against some telemarketing fraud targets. The first sweep operation was Project Telesweep in July 1995 which cracked down on 100 business opportunity scams.
In 1984, the FTC began organizing the funeral home industry to protect consumers from fraudulent practices. FTC Funeral Rules require funeral homes to provide all customers (and potential customers) with a General Price List (GPL), specifically describing goods and services in the funeral industry, as defined by the FTC, and their price list. By law, the GPL should be presented to all the individuals who ask, nothing to be denied a written and sustained copy of the GPL. In 1996, the FTC instituted the Funeral Rule Violation Program (FROP), in which "funeral homes make voluntary payments to the US Treasury or proper state funds for an amount less than what might be sought if the Commission is authorized to file a lawsuit for civil punishment. In addition, funerary homes participate in the NFDA compliance program, which includes a review of price lists, on-site staff training, and testing and certification of follow-up on compliance with the Funeral Rules. "
One of the other main focuses of the Federal Trade Commission is identity theft. The FTC serves as a federal repository for individual consumer complaints related to identity theft. Although the FTC does not resolve individual complaints, it uses aggregate information to determine where a federal action might be taken. Complaint forms are available online or by phone (1-877-ID-THEFT).
The FTC has been engaged in online advertising industry surveillance and behavioral targeting practices for some time. In 2011, the FTC proposed a "Do Not Track" mechanism to enable Internet users to opt out of behavioral targeting.
In 2013, the FTC publishes a comprehensive revision of the Green Guide, which sets standards for environmental marketing.
Unfair or deceptive practices that affect consumers
Section 5 of the Federal Trade Commission Act, 15 US. 45 provides the FTC's power to investigate and prevent deceptive trading practices. The law states that "unfair competition methods in or affecting trade, and unfair or deceptive acts or practices in or affecting commerce, are hereby declared unlawful." Injustice and consumer fraud represent two different fields of enforcement and FTC authority. The FTC also has the authority over unfair competition methods between businesses.
Fraud practices
In a letter to the Chairman of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, the FTC defines elements of a fraud case. First, "there must be representations, omissions or practices that tend to mislead consumers." In the case of negligence, the Commission considers implied representations understood by consumers. Misleading neglect occurs when information is not disclosed to correct a reasonable consumer expectation. Secondly, the Commission examined the practice from a reasonable consumer perspective that was the target of practice. Finally representation or omission must be material - it is one that will change consumer behavior.
In the Dot Com Disclosures guide, the FTC says that "[d] is the impression necessary to prevent fraud or provide material information to consumers about a transaction should be presented clearly and prominently." The FTC suggests a number of different factors that will help determine whether the information is "clear and conspicuous" including but not limited to:
- the placement of the disclosure in the ad and the proximity with the qualified claim,
- excellence disclosure,
- whether the item in any other part of the ad distracts from the disclosure,
- whether the ad is so long that the disclosure needs to be repeated ,
- whether the disclosure in the audio message is presented in sufficient volume and rhythm and visual disclosures appear for duration , and
- whether the language of the disclosure can be understandable for the intended audience.
In F.T.C. v. Cyberspace.com The FTC found that sending a consumer email that looked as a check for $ 3.50 to a customer attached to the invoice was deceptive when cashing the check was an agreement to pay a monthly fee for internet access. The back of the check, in fine print, reveals the existence of this agreement to the consumer. The FTC concluded that the practice was misleading a reasonable consumer, mainly because there was evidence that less than one percent of the 225,000 people and businesses that were billed for Internet services were actually signed in.
In In Gateway Learning Corp. The FTC states that Gateway practices unfair and deceptive trade practices by making retroactive changes to its privacy policy without notifying customers and by violating its own privacy policy by selling customer information at that time the word will not. Gateway resolves the complaint by entering an approval decision with the FTC which requires it to turn over some profits and place restrictions on the Gateway over the next 20 years.
In In Matter of Sears Holdings Management Corp. , the FTC alleges that the research software program provided by Sears cheats because it collects information about almost all online behavior, a fact that is only disclosed in legalese, buried in the end user license agreement.
In 2016, the FTC launched an action against the OMICS Publishing Group for its actions in producing predatory journals and hosting predatory conferences in part in response to the ongoing pressure of the academic community. This is the first action performed by the FTC against the publishers of academic journals. The complaint stated that the defendant had "tricked academics and researchers about the nature of the publication and hid publishing costs ranging from hundreds to thousands of dollars" and notes that "OMICS regularly advertises conferences featuring academic experts who are never scheduled to appear in order to attract registrants" and that participants "spend hundreds or thousands of dollars on registration fees and travel expenses to attend this scientific conference." Scripts are sometimes also held hostage, with OMICS refusing to allow submissions to be withdrawn and thereby preventing sending back to other journals for consideration. Jeffrey Beall described OMICS as the worst of the worst among predatory publishers.
Unfair practice
The Court has identified three main factors to be considered in cases of consumer injustice: (1) whether the practice of injuring consumers; (2) whether the practice violates the established public policy; and (3) whether it is unethical or immoral.
FTC activities in the health care industry
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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