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Consumer Protection
We’re continuing the work we’ve been doing since 2013: monitoring how the FTC operates, warning about the potential for abuse inherent in the FTC’s uniquely broad jurisdiction and extraordinarily elastic legal standards, and proposing reforms that could curb the potential for abuse without hamstringing the agency from bringing sound cases to protect consumers.
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Latest Articles
Article
Maureen Ohlhausen Objects to FTC’s Internet of Things Report
Commissioner Ohlhausen voted to approve issuance of the staff report, but objected to the report’s call for new baseline privacy legislation: I do not support the recommendation for baseline privacy legislation because I do not see the current need for such legislation. The FTC’s Section 5 deception and unfairness authority already requires notice and opt-in consent for collecting consumers’ sensitive, personally identifiable information. It also protects against uses of personal information ...
January 27, 2015
Article
FTC Issues Stealth Regulations over Internet of Things
WASHINGTON D.C. — Today, the FTC released a report recommending “best practices” around privacy and data security for the “Internet of Things” — connected smart home devices, smart cars and the like. The report echoes so-called “recommendations” made by the FTC in other reports since 2010. Commissioner Josh Wright dissented, lamenting that “‘security by design’ and other privacy-related catchphrases … do not appear to contain any meaningful analytical content.” ...
January 27, 2015
Article
Serious Cost-Benefit Analysis on Privacy
Cost-benefit analysis is supposed to be at the heart of the FTC’s unfairness powers. But the FTC doesn’t really bother with CBA in privacy cases, as FTC Commissioner Josh Wright lamented in an interview last summer with Chris Wolf for IAPP about the FTC’s report on data brokers: Serious cost-benefit analysis concerning consumers and privacy requires rigorous study of consumer preferences. By that, I mean what is required to understand how and to what extent consumers ...
January 26, 2015
Article
The FTC Used to Care About Tradeoffs
The FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection doesn’t seem to care much for cost-benefit analysis. But it’s worth remembering that the idea (much cherished by Carter-era scholars of regulation) lay at the heart of the FTC’s 1980 Unfairness Policy Statement: Second, the injury must not be outweighed by any offsetting consumer or competitive benefits that the sales practice also produces. Most business practices entail a mixture of economic and other costs and benefits for purchasers. A seller’s ...
January 26, 2015
Article
Josh Wright Blasts FTC’s Internet of Things Report
Commissioner Wright has objected before that the FTC doesn’t take cost-benefit analysis seriously. He levels much the same criticism at the FTC’s new Internet of Things report in his stinging dissent: The most significant drawback of relying upon “security by design” and other privacy-related catchphrases is that they do not appear to contain any meaningful analytical Cost-Benefit Analysis, the Forgotten Heart of the FTC’s Unfairness Doctrine: Relying upon the ...
January 26, 2015
Article
How Long Should Americans Wait for Clarity on Digital Privacy?
President Obama doesn’t want to talk about surveillance—and is once again trying to change the subject to regulating the companies that have made the Internet great. If he actually wants to get new privacy and data security legislation through Congress, he’ll have to negotiate with Republicans over how the Federal Trade Commission regulates new technologies—or find a way to break the long deadlock over legislation. Almost three years ago, the White House issued a press release headlined ...
January 14, 2015
Article
Federal Intrusion – Too Many Apps for That: TF’s Geoffrey Manne in WSJ
Who’s better suited to design an app store? Google, or the Federal Trade Commission (FTC)? The answer seems obvious, but recent enforcement actions by the FTC suggest otherwise. Google recently agreed to pay $19 million to settle FTC charges that the company had made it too easy for children to make unauthorized purchases in the Android app store. Apple settled a similar case earlier this year, and Amazon has also come under fire for its in-app purchasing design (Amazon refused to settle and its ...
September 18, 2014
Article
A Bold Proposal: Congress Must Establish a Commission to Audit America’s Privacy Laws
TechFreedom and ICLE File Joint Comments on the NTIA’s Inquiry into Big Data Yesterday, TechFreedom and the International Center for Law & Economics (ICLE) filed joint comments with the National Telecommunications & Information Administration (NTIA), urging the Obama Administration to call on Congress to establish a temporary Privacy Law Modernization Commission modeled on the Antitrust Modernization Commission created in 2002. The comments respond to the NTIA’s inquiry into ...