Federal Trade CommissionFederal Trade CommissionFTC_c86ff34b-c8f9-4e38-b66a-d31eec3022feA U.S. economy characterized by vigorous competition among producers and consumer access to accurate information, yielding high-quality products at low prices and rewarding efficiency, innovation, and consumer choice._754a2461-2bc8-4fc2-9145-7e84e9b0a8b4To prevent business practices that are anticompetitive or deceptive or unfair to consumers; to enhance informed consumer choice and public understanding of the competitive process; and to accomplish these missions without unduly burdening legitimate business activity._c4f5f849-9296-44c9-925d-d97d5f26e8c1Protect ConsumersPrevent fraud, deception, and unfair business practices in the marketplace_cb465946-2f85-48ad-93ba-8369445ffae71The FTC has jurisdiction over a wide range of consumer protection issues. To carry out its broad mission, it must make effective use of limited resources by targeting its law enforcement and education efforts for maximum impact and by working closely with federal, state, international, and private sector partners in joint initiatives. In addition, the agency engages in dialogue with a variety of stakeholders to understand market concerns, and engages in and encourages study of and empirical research on consumer protection topics. Recent news reports about data security breaches have heightened public awareness about the importance of safeguarding sensitive consumer information. Data security is one of several areas of concern to the FTC in its work to protect consumers’ privacy and combat identity theft. The FTC must have resources to address the misuse of consumers’ sensitive information and help consumers protect their privacy and identities. New and expanding technologies present challenges for the FTC. The agency is working on matters involving spam, spyware and unauthorized adware, peer-to-peer file sharing, and “phishing” to help protect consumers in the high-tech marketplace. Attacking telemarketing and business opportunity fraud continues to be a challenge and a priority, as does protecting consumers from more traditional scams that have found new life on the Internet, including pyramid schemes and health-related fraud. The Internet has become an especially fertile ground for scam artists, who can reach vulnerable consumers easily and cheaply online and immediately access both a national and an international marketplace. The FTC must put forward a long-term strategic vision to ensure that it keeps pace with new technologies while continuing to address traditional and known fraudulent practices facing consumers in the marketplace. In the consumer protection area, the FTC works with foreign agencies on investigations and cases that affect U.S. consumers. Given the rise in consumer complaints involving crossborder fraud that has occurred over the last several years, the FTC must continue to bring cases with international components. During FY 2005, the FTC released a report on proposed legislation, the US SAFE WEB Act, that would improve the FTC’s ability to combat crossborder consumer protection law violations, particularly violations involving spam and spyware. This legislation will give the FTC new tools to tackle cases with an international component. Meeting the challenges of the global marketplace and forging partnerships with international parties are critical to meet this strategic goal. Through cooperation with foreign consumer protection agencies and participation in international organizations, the FTC can engage in cooperative foreign law enforcement actions and develop policies that promote consumer choice in the international marketplace. The agency will continue to target its efforts based on the analysis of consumer complaint data that it gathers. FTC databases – including Consumer Sentinel, Identity Theft Data Clearinghouse, Consumer Information System, and spam database – enable the agency and its law enforcement partners to detect trends and problems that involve fraud as they occur. The FTC’s prospective challenges include maintaining a rich array of data, ensuring that its systems are fully used by the agency and its law enforcement partners, and ensuring that the information it collects is reliable. The FTC also continually strives to identify new methods of mining this data and sharing the results in innovative ways to assist its law enforcement partners. These efforts bear fruit in the cases brought by the FTC and other law enforcement agencies who have access to this data. It is critical to the achievement of this goal that resources be available to maintain and update these databases and data-mining capabilities.Identify Fraud, Deception, and Unfair PracticesIdentify fraud, deception, and unfair practices that cause the greatest consumer injury_40813ae4-037a-4650-a722-0df2a01b36fd1.1 To fulfill its consumer protection mission, the FTC must identify consumer protection problems and trends in the fast-changing, increasingly global marketplace. The agency strives to understand the issues affecting consumers, including any newly emerging methods of fraud or deceit, to address these problems more effectively. The FTC reports this information to other law enforcement authorities and encourages those authorities to assist in its efforts, either independently or jointly. In this way, the FTC can leverage its resources by ensuring multiple “cops on the beat.” To fulfill this objective, the FTC is using new technologies creatively and building on its broad base of private and public sector partners. The agency continues to collect consumer complaint information directly through four principal sources: (1) a toll-free helpline (1-877-FTC HELP); (2) an identity theft hotline (1-877-ID-THEFT); (3) the National Do Not Call Registry (www.donotcall.gov); and (4) the online consumer complaint forms that support each of these efforts, as well as online complaint forms dedicated to members of the U.S. Armed Forces and to cross-border fraud complaints. In addition, the FTC continues to gather consumer complaint information from other sources, including law enforcement agencies, Better Business Bureaus, and private entities. The agency makes this and other information available online to its law enforcement partners through a secure Internet Web site. Currently, that site is accessed by more than 1,500 law enforcement partner agencies in the United States, Canada, and Australia. The FTC’s law enforcement partners and other groups also identify issue areas and refer targets. In addition, the agency augments identification of targets from its database with traditional strategies for generating enforcement leads. Strategies: • Continue to upgrade and enhance the online consumer complaint database and Web site to respond to increasing demands and maintain it as the premier consumer protection law enforcement information resource. • Improve and expand the tools that are provided through this Web site by pulling multiple systems together onto one platform and making it the gateway for law enforcement officials who want information about the consumer protection problems affecting consumers. • Expand the pool of entities that make their consumer complaint data available to the law enforcement community through this Web site. • Improve information sharing with law enforcement partners through this Web site. • Continue outreach to international law enforcement partners and organizations to improve information sharing. • Continue to strengthen the FTC’s capabilities to analyze the increasing volume of consumer complaints and augment complaints with other sources to develop case leads and identify new or emerging concerns. • Monitor the marketplace to identify illegal practices that may not be fully captured by the database, for example, through the FTC Internet Lab, spam database, Web surveys (surfs), and through consumer surveys, such as the recent fraud and identity theft surveys. • Ensure the quality, security, and integrity of the database and Web site information. Annual and Five-Year Performance Measures: - Collect and enter more than 1.05M complaints and inquiries into the consumer database a year by 2008; and more than 1.25M by 2011 - Determine if at least one-half of consumer protection law enforcement actions each year are responsive to the consumer complaint information gathered by the agencyLaw EnforcementStop fraud, deception, unfairness, and other unlawful practices through law enforcement_675074da-978f-45ab-b8f4-47c4f14c97d01.2The FTC protects consumers by enforcing Section 5 of the FTC Act, which prohibits unfair or deceptive acts or practices in or affecting commerce, as well as by enforcing an increasing number of statutes and rules proscribing specific unlawful practices. The agency initiates civil cases, primarily by filing actions in federal court, which allege that defendants have violated these laws and rules and seeking injunctions and other relief. Strategies: • Focus agency enforcement on cutting-edge issues that threaten consumer protection in emerging areas, including e-commerce, globalization, and the marketing of new products and services. • Stop injury to consumers by applying fundamental consumer protection principles to new practices, such as those arising from emerging payment systems and the convergence of information technologies. • Halt advertising and marketing practices that are most injurious to consumers or that prey on specific groups of vulnerable consumers. • Challenge practices that threaten consumer privacy. • Enforce consumer credit statutes and rules to protect consumers from deceptive lending practices and other illegal credit practices. • Use the results of the consumer fraud and identity theft surveys to determine where enforcement needs are greatest and meet these needs with targeted enforcement efforts. • Update, rescind, or promulgate trade regulation rules and other agency rules in response to regulatory reviews and Congressional mandates. • Create and implement a comprehensive order-enforcement program that targets those individuals and corporations that violate federal court and administrative orders obtained by the FTC. • Promote the criminal prosecution of the most egregious fraud violators through coordination and cooperation with criminal law enforcement authorities. • Continue to coordinate with local, state, federal, and international law enforcement partners for initiatives and sweeps. Annual and Five-Year Performance Measures: - Stop fraudulent and deceptive practices by obtaining at least 130 orders each year - Stop approximately $400M in economic injury to consumers each year; save consumers a total of at least $2B through law enforcement by 2011Consumer EducationPrevent consumer injury through education_2111ed8c-6aad-48a5-bb3a-566eabed193a1.3Consumer and business education serves as the first line of defense against fraud, deception, and unfair practices. Most FTC law enforcement initiatives include a consumer and/or business education component aimed at preventing consumer injury and unlawful business practices, and mitigating financial losses. From time to time, the agency conducts preemptive consumer and business education campaigns to raise awareness of new or emerging marketplace issues that have the potential to cause harm. Strategies: • Focus consumer and business education efforts on areas where fraud, deception, unfair practices, and information gaps cause the greatest injury. • Leverage resources (by working with federal, state, local, international, and private sector partners) to maximize the reach of consumer and business education campaigns. • Target particular demographic groups with messages about marketplace issues that impact their health, safety, and economic well-being. • Use the results of the consumer fraud and identity theft surveys to determine where education needs are greatest and meet these needs with targeted education efforts. • Increase public awareness of consumer protection problems and solutions by conducting and publishing studies and filing advocacy comments on changes in the marketplace and the impact of business and government actions on consumers. Annual and Five-Year Performance Measures: Track if FTC’s consumer protection messages are accessed online or in print a total of more than 50M times a year by 2008, and more than 60M times a year by2011 - Determine if, included in the total of consumer protection messages accessed, those relating to identity theft are accessed more than 9M times a year by 2008, and more than 11M times a year by 2011 - Determine if, included in the total of consumer protection messages accessed, messages in Spanish are accessed more than 3M times a year by 2008, and more than 4M times a year by 2011 - Track number of times print media publish articles that refer to FTC consumer protection activities and the circulation of the media that publish those articles each yearResearch, Reports, Advocacy, and International CooperationEnhance consumer welfare through research, reports, advocacy, and international cooperation and exchange_c7286a3d-9e10-48ab-8092-317523bc5fbb1.4The FTC uses a variety of strategies in addition to law enforcement and education to enhance consumer welfare. The agency convenes conferences and workshops through which experts and other experienced and knowledgeable parties identify novel or challenging consumer protection issues and discuss ways to address those issues. The FTC also issues reports that Congress has mandated or that the agency has prepared on its own initiative that analyze consumer protection problems and suggest public and private sector policies to address them, such as self-regulatory efforts. Further, the FTC files comments with federal and state government bodies advocating policies that promote the interests of consumers and highlight the role of consumer and empirical research in their decision making. In particular, the agency testifies before Congress on consumer protection issues. The FTC engages in a variety of international cooperation, exchange, and advocacy activities designed to promote market-based consumer protection policies and effective cross-border coordination. The FTC also files amicus briefs to aid courts’ considerations of important consumer protection issues. Strategies: • Focus workshops and conferences on emerging or challenging consumer protection problems, especially those related to new technologies. • Issue reports mandated by law and other reports that articulate concrete measures that the public and private sectors could take to address consumer protection problems, particularly those related to new technologies or emerging technologies. • Target advocacy activities to encourage state, federal, and foreign government policymakers to evaluate both the costs and benefits of their policies for consumers, emphasizing the impact on consumers of policies that unnecessarily affect the dissemination of truthful, non-misleading information to consumers and the interplay of competition and consumer protection concerns. • Use letters and public comments to urge state, federal, and foreign government policymakers to consider consumer research and other empirical data in their decisions regarding the costs and benefits of their policies for consumers. • Pursue the development of an international market-based consumer protection model, which focuses on protecting consumers from significant harm while maximizing economic benefit, consumer access to information, and consumer choice. • Encourage industry self-regulation where consumer protection problems are emerging, industry has a comparative advantage in addressing the problems, or legal or practical limitations constrain the government’s ability to act. Annual and Five-Year Performance Measures: - Convene or participate substantially in at least 30workshops and conferences and issue at least 40 reports on novel or challenging consumer protection problems or issues over five-year period - File at least 30 public and advocacy comments with other federal and state government agencies over five-year period - Cooperate with foreign government agencies on at least 100 enforcement matters with cross-border components over five-year period - Provide policy or technical input to foreign government agencies or international organizations in at least 100instances involving consumer protection over five-year periodMaintain CompetitionPrevent anticompetitive mergers and other anticompetitive business practices in the marketplace_a33e1bf3-65de-4151-94f8-c7e875d75bb62The work of the FTC’s Maintaining Competition Mission is critical to protect and strengthen the free and open markets that are the cornerstone of a vibrant economy. Aggressive competition among sellers in an open marketplace gives consumers the benefit of lower prices, higher quality products and services, maximum choice, and innovation leading to beneficial new products and services. The FTC’s goal is to promote vigorous competition by using the antitrust laws to prevent anticompetitive mergers and stop business practices that diminish competition, such as agreements among competitors about prices or other aspects of competition (referred to as nonmerger enforcement), while at the same time minimizing the burdens on legitimate competitive activities. The FTC also engages in a dialogue with state, federal, and international policymakers to advocate on behalf of free and open markets and to urge them to restrict competition as little as possible when pursuing other regulatory goals. In addition, the agency engages in dialogue with a variety of stakeholders to understand market concerns, and engages in and encourages study of and empirical research on competition topics. The FTC also files amicus curiae briefs in cases presenting important competition issues that urge courts to adopt rules that benefit consumers by promoting competition. As with the Consumer Protection Mission, the FTC monitors the marketplace for issues that may harm competition and, as a consequence, consumers. In the current economy, companies are restructuring and merging, seeking new ways to market both new and old products to a growing consumer market. During the 1990s, the number of mergers reported to the FTC tripled, and the dollar value of commerce affected by those mergers increased eleven-fold. While merger activity has eased considerably since 2000, and the number of reportable transactions was reduced by a statutory change to the Hart-Scott-Rodino Premerger Notification Program in 2001, recent trends suggest a renewed upward trajectory in merger activity that includes an increasing number of particularly complex transactions. The total dollar value of reportable transactions roughly doubled between 2002 and 2005, with a smaller, but still substantial, increase in the number of reportable transactions. The number of merger filings has a direct impact on the FTC’s resources allocated to this goal. A large increase in filings can drain resources from nonmerger activities and affect the agency’s performance in achieving this goal. The continuing transition to a knowledge-based economy from a primarily manufacturing-based economy highlights important questions about the relationship between the antitrust and intellectual property laws. Continuing technological developments and regulatory reform in certain industries are resulting in competition supplanting regulation as the primary means of protecting consumers’ interests in some markets. Separately, the restructuring of financial markets is raising concerns about the privacy of personal financial information. These important concerns must be addressed by the agency to help maintain competition in the marketplace. In addition, the increasing globalization of commerce and communications also affects the FTC’s achievement of its strategic goals. More merger investigations involve companies with international ties, and more consumer fraud is being perpetrated across international borders, requiring cooperation with foreign authorities to resolve concerns. When appropriate, the FTC also helps foreign authorities with technical assistance. Changing technology, globalization, and increased complexity mean that many FTC decisions occur under conditions of significant uncertainty. Research, workshops, and hearings that refine the FTC’s theoretical framework or its empirical understanding of industry practices can increase its ability to promote consumer welfare. Health care quality, petroleum pricing, e-commerce, and intellectual property are just a few of the topics on which the FTC will seek to develop a significant knowledge base to guide future decisions. Finally, because antitrust enforcement no longer stops at U.S. borders, the agency must continue its work in the international arena. Today, more than 100 governments enforce various sets of competition laws, and that number continues to grow. Because of the continued growth of commerce beyond national boundaries, these different antitrust enforcement authorities increasingly overlap and intersect. Inconsistencies and diverse requirements increase the costs faced by firms that seek to combine assets or businesses, establish distribution channels, or pursue other business arrangements. This includes both the cost to comply with different regulatory mechanisms and the risk of differing outcomes. Thus, the current growth and diversity in antitrust enforcement mechanisms can interfere with the common goal of promoting a competitive economy. The FTC will continue to work with various international groups to increase the procedural and substantive convergence of merger oversight authorities throughout the world. The FTC also will broaden and deepen its cooperation with international agencies on individual cases and antitrust policy issues to better carry out its responsibilities under this strategic goal. In addition, the FTC will continue to consider tools to address exceptional situations in which agencies ultimately differ in how they propose to handle a particular case.Identify Anticompetitive Mergers and PracticesIdentify anticompetitive mergers and practices that cause the greatest consumer injury_55021a44-fa54-4c40-a705-d601c941d5ef2.1The Hart-Scott-Rodino (HSR) Premerger Notification Act provides the FTC an effective starting point for identifying anticompetitive mergers before they are consummated. The FTC administers the HSR program both for itself and for the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) Antitrust Division, which shares authority to challenge anticompetitive mergers. Mergers reported to the FTC vary tremendously in their complexity and potential anticompetitive effect. In some cases, the agency can make a reasonable judgment within a few days of filing about whether a merger has the potential to be anticompetitive or procompetitive, simply by reviewing materials filed with the notification. In other cases, an investigation can take months and require a major commitment of resources. Far more transactions fall into the former category than the latter. The FTC also uses trade press articles, consumer and competitor complaints, and other means to identify potentially anticompetitive mergers that were not required to be reported under HSR, or that were not reported in violation of HSR. On the nonmerger side, there is no comparable statutorily mandated program to help identify anticompetitive business practices. The FTC must instead employ a variety of methods to identify potentially anticompetitive practices (for example, consumer and competitor complaints, referrals from other government agencies, and monitoring the trade press). Strategies: • Continue to make efficient use of the initial 30-day period after HSR filings (or 15 days for a cash tender offer) to determine whether a more detailed investigation is needed to assess whether a merger is likely to harm competition, and to avoid unnecessary extended investigations, including prompt inter-agency clearance and timely review. • Use trade press articles, consumer and competitor complaints, and other means to identify potentially anticompetitive mergers that were not required to be reported under HSR, or that were not reported in violation of HSR, and potentially anticompetitive nonmerger business practices. • When appropriate, issue requests for additional information under HSR to determine whether a merger is likely to be anticompetitive. • When appropriate, use compulsory process in merger and nonmerger investigations to obtain additional information needed to make an informed judgment about the anticompetitive potential of mergers and nonmerger practices. • Apply the merger process reforms to conduct investigations more efficiently, in order to enhance enforcement outcomes while minimizing burdens on business. • Employ integrated teams of lawyers, economists, and other professionals to conduct an economically sound, fact-based analysis of mergers and other potentially anticompetitive business practices. Retain outside experts and consultants in relevant fields of expertise, as needed, when enforcement outcomes would be enhanced by specialized supplementary resources. • Work with state or local officials, other federal agencies, or international agencies to maximize resources in identifying anticompetitive mergers and business practices, and to minimize, to the extent possible, burdens on enforcers and business and duplication of effort, and to avoid conflicting remedies. • Track and maintain the timeliness of investigations and merger review under the HSR program. • Refine the investigative and decisional tools used in both merger and nonmerger investigations through continuous learning. • Identify emerging trends and focus on potentially anticompetitive business practices or other issues that need to be addressed because of changes in the economy, technology, and the marketplace, drawing upon the results of hearings, task forces, agency studies and reports, and other means. • Continue to integrate e-government initiatives, such as electronic premerger filing, into mission activities. Annual and Five-Year Performance Measures: - Track number of enforcement actions for the total mission, and separately for the merger and nonmerger programs - Achieve positive outcome in at least 90% of matters in which HSR requests for additional information issue - Report annual number of second requests, reportable transactions for which premerger notifications were received, HSR investigations that resulted in enforcement action, transactions in which antitrust issues were resolved through voluntary abandonment or restructuring because of FTC concerns, and investigations closed because the evidence indicated that a competitive problem was unlikely - Achieve a positive outcome in at least 90% of annual significant nonmerger investigations - Track number of significant nonmerger investigations closed each year, with or without enforcement actionLaw EnforcementStop anticompetitive mergers and business practices through law enforcement_4b64bfae-427c-4ca9-9740-adb62e29823c2.2This enforcement objective includes both obtaining orders to stop anticompetitive activity (either through litigation or by consent) and ensuring that the remedies imposed by those orders are effective. Conduct that reduces competition is likely to cause consumers to pay higher prices or enjoy lower quality than they otherwise would. Antitrust enforcement provides substantial benefits to consumers by preventing anticompetitive mergers and other coordinated or unilateral conduct that is likely to lessen competition. Strategies: • Continue to benefit consumers in markets involving billions of dollars in annual sales by challenging anticompetitive mergers and other nonmerger anticompetitive conduct, negotiating consent orders, and winning litigated orders, resulting in millions of dollars in consumer savings. • Negotiate merger and nonmerger consent orders and win litigated orders that have significant remedial, precedential, and deterrent effects. • Improve negotiation and litigation skills through continuous learning. • Apply the merger process reforms to conduct investigations more efficiently, in order to enhance enforcement outcomes while minimizing burdens on business. • Improve the FTC’s capacity to promote consumer welfare by applying the information gained through workshops, hearings, and research projects that improve its understanding of significant antitrust issues. • Retain outside experts and consultants in relevant fields of expertise, as needed, when enforcement outcomes would be enhanced by specialized supplementary resources. • Continue to integrate e-government initiatives into mission activities. • Ensure that administrative litigation and adjudication reach a timely resolution. • Improve the integration of budget and performance by linking goals and objectives to results; develop improved processes for use and analysis of management data. Annual and Five-Year Performance Measures: - Achieve a positive result in at least 80% of cases in which the FTC takes enforcement action each year - Take action against mergers likely to harm competition in markets with a total of at least $125B in sales over 5-year period; $25B in sales each year - Save consumers an estimated $2.5B over 5-year period through merger enforcement; $500M each year - Save consumers at least six times the amount of agency resources allocated to the merger program over 5-year period - Take action against nonmerger anticompetitive conduct in markets with a total of at least $40B in annual sales over 5-year period; $8B each year - Save consumers an estimated $400M over 5-year period through nonmerger enforcement; $80M each year - Save consumers at least four times the amount of agency resources allocated to the nonmerger enforcement program over 5-year periodConsumer EducationPrevent consumer injury through education_de8d5aea-6158-4514-9041-a6dc017270b02.3Educating consumers and businesses about competition law and policy is a critical part of the FTC’s mission. Informing businesses and their legal advisers about potential antitrust violations deters anticompetitive mergers and anticompetitive business practices from being proposed and reduces businesses’ cost of compliance. Educating consumers about their rights and their ability to bring violations to the FTC’s attention reduces the cost of identifying anticompetitive conduct. Providing consumers and businesses with information about how antitrust enforcement benefits the common good also encourages cooperation with the FTC’s investigations and enforcement actions. Strategies: • Educate consumers and businesses about antitrust issues through traditional means such as guidelines, advisory opinions, reports, articles in professional or other publications, speeches, and participation in professional organizations. • Educate consumers through detailed information regarding agency actions on the FTC Web site, and in press releases, reports, articles, and other publications. • Educate businesses through detailed information regarding agency actions on the FTC Web site, and in press releases, reports, articles, and other publications. • Continue to conduct and disseminate the results of public hearings, conferences, and workshops on practices and developments in the marketplace and the results of economic research on how markets operate. • Continue to enhance avenues of communication with consumers and business, such as email and the FTC Web site. • Ensure that the content of complaints, press releases, and analyses to aid public comment are “transparent,” that is, that they explain in sufficient detail and with sufficient clarity the evidence and theory of a case, within the constraints of confidentiality requirements. • Expand the use of other public statements to explain why the Commission elected not to take enforcement action in certain matters to further improve the public’s understanding of the FTC’s enforcement policies. • Engage in outreach to lay groups such as schools to provide information about the work of the FTC and basic principles of economics and competition. • Engage in outreach to foreign competition agencies to facilitate the agency’s efforts to promote convergence toward sound consumer-welfare-based competition enforcement and policy. Annual and Five-Year Performance Measures: - Track annual volume of traffic on the ftc.gov antitrust related pages that are relevant to policymakers, the business and legal communities, and the public at large - Track number of times print media publish articles that refer to FTC competition activities and the circulation of the media that publish those articles each yearResearch, Reports, Advocacy, and International CooperationEnhance consumer welfare through research, reports, advocacy, and international cooperation and exchange_0356d094-8200-4c25-8822-747fdc22f3d72.4In addition to its enforcement authority, the FTC has unique jurisdiction to gather, analyze, and make public certain information concerning the nature of competition as it affects U.S. commerce. The FTC uses that authority to hold public hearings, convene conferences and workshops, conduct economic studies on competition issues of significant public importance, and issue reports of its findings. This authority advances the competition mission in numerous ways. The agency uses the information internally to refine the theoretical framework for analyzing competition issues and the empirical understanding of industry practices, which contributes substantially to an effective response to changing marketplace conditions. The information gained through this authority, combined with the agency’s professional expertise on competition issues, also contributes to a better understanding of business practices and their competitive and economic implications by various entities, including the business sector, the legal community, other enforcement authorities, the judiciary, foreign competition agencies, and governmental decision makers and policymakers at the federal, state, and local levels. In particular, the agency testifies before Congress on competition issues. The FTC uses its expertise to encourage governmental actors at all levels to evaluate both the costs and the benefits of their policies for consumers, and to ensure such policies promote consumer welfare. This advocacy includes formal and informal dialogue with state and federal policymakers and amicus curiae briefs filed with state and federal courts. Dialogue with competition authorities of other countries and international organizations, and, in some cases, technical assistance to other competition authorities, promotes procedural consistency and the adoption of competition policies that protect and enhance consumer welfare, which ultimately will accrue to the benefit of American consumers as well as those in other countries. Strategies: • Conduct public hearings, conferences, and workshops that bring together interested parties to enhance understanding of various practices and developments in the marketplace. • Conduct studies as requested by Congress and other studies as appropriate. • Conduct economic studies of the effects of business actions on competition and consumer welfare in accordance with agency data quality standards, as applicable, to ensure the quality of information that may be disseminated publicly. • Target advocacy activities to encourage state, federal, and foreign government policymakers to evaluate both the costs and the benefits of their policies for consumers, emphasizing the impact on consumers of policies that unnecessarily restrict competition. • File amicus curiae briefs with state and federal courts deciding important competition policy issues urging them to adopt legal rules that benefit consumers by promoting competition. • Participate in dialogue with competition authorities of other countries and international organizations on trans-national competition issues that affect American consumers and businesses and to promote sound consumer-welfare-based competition policy. • Participate in technical assistance missions to countries with new competition regimes. Annual and Five-Year Performance Measures: - Track annual volume of traffic on ftc.gov relating to competition research, reports, advocacy, and international cooperation and exchange - Convene, or participate substantively in, at least 20workshops, conferences, seminars, and hearings involving significant competition-related issues over 5-year period - Issue at least 40 studies, reports, or working or issues papers on significant competition-related issues over 5-year period - Make at least 30 advocacy filings with other federal and state government agencies urging them to assess the competitive ramifications and costs and benefits to consumers of their policies over 5-year period - Issue at least 12 advisory opinions over five year period - File at least 12 amicus briefs with courts over 5-yearperiod - Track number of cases on which the FTC cooperated with a foreign competition authority, number of consultations with or comments to foreign competition authorities, number of written submissions on international fora, number of international events attended, and number of leadership positions held by FTC staff in international competition organizations2005-10-102011-09-302010-02-08http://www.ftc.gov/opp/gpra/spfy06fy11.pdfArthurColman (www.drybridge.com)colman@drybridge.com