Federal Trade Commission
The Federal Trade Commission is an independent agency of the United States government whose principal mission is the enforcement of civil antitrust law and the promotion of consumer protection. It shares jurisdiction over federal civil antitrust law enforcement with the Antitrust Division of the U.S. Department of Justice. The FTC is headquartered in the Federal Trade Commission Building in Washington, DC.
The FTC was established in 1914 by the Federal Trade Commission Act, which the U.S. Congress passed in response to the 19th-century monopolistic trust crisis. Since its inception, the FTC has enforced the provisions of the Clayton Act, a key U.S. antitrust statute, as well as the provisions of the FTC Act, et seq. Over time, the FTC has been delegated with the enforcement of additional business regulation statutes and has promulgated a number of regulations. The broad statutory authority granted to the FTC provides it with more surveillance and monitoring abilities than it actually uses.
The FTC is composed of five commissioners who were nominated by the president and subject to Senate confirmation. Commissioners serve seven-year terms, and by law can only be fired for "inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance in office." No more than three FTC members can be from the same party. One member of the body serves as FTC chair at the President's pleasure, with Commissioner Andrew N. Ferguson having served as chair since January 2025.
History
Early history
In the aftermath of the U.S. Supreme Court's landmark decision in Standard Oil Co. of New Jersey v. United States in 1911, the first version of a bill to establish a commission to regulate interstate trade was introduced on January 25, 1912, by Oklahoma congressman Dick Thompson Morgan. He would make the first speech on the House floor advocating its creation on February 21, 1912.Though the initial bill did not pass, the questions of trusts and antitrust dominated the 1912 election. Most political party platforms in 1912 endorsed the establishment of a federal trade commission with its regulatory powers placed in the hands of an administrative board, as an alternative to functions previously and necessarily exercised so slowly through the courts.
With the 1912 presidential election decided in favor of the Democrats and Woodrow Wilson, Morgan reintroduced a slightly amended version of his bill during the April 1913 special session. The national debate culminated in Wilson's signing of the FTC Act on September 26, 1914, with additional tightening of regulations in the Clayton Antitrust Act three weeks later.
The new FTC would absorb the staff and duties of Bureau of Corporations, previously established under the Department of Commerce and Labor in 1903. The FTC could additionally challenge "unfair methods of competition" and enforce the Clayton Act's more specific prohibitions against certain price discrimination, vertical arrangements, interlocking directorates, and stock acquisitions.
1980s
In 1984, the FTC began to regulate the funeral home industry in order to protect consumers from deceptive practices. The FTC Funeral Rule requires funeral homes to provide all customers with a General Price List, specifically outlining goods and services in the funeral industry, as defined by the FTC, and a listing of their prices. By law, the GPL must be presented on request to all individuals, and no one is to be denied a written, retainable copy of the GPL.1990s
In 1996, the FTC instituted the Funeral Rule Offenders Program, under which "funeral homes make a voluntary payment to the U.S. Treasury or appropriate state fund for an amount less than what would likely be sought if the Commission authorized filing a lawsuit for civil penalties. In addition, the funeral homes participate in the NFDA compliance program, which includes a review of the price lists, on-site training of the staff, and follow-up testing and certification on compliance with the Funeral Rule."In the mid-1990s, the FTC launched the fraud sweeps concept where the agency and its federal, state, and local partners filed simultaneous legal actions against multiple telemarketing fraud targets. The first sweeps operation was Project Telesweep in July 1995 which cracked down on 100 business opportunity scams.
Bush administration
Gateway Learning case
In the 2004 case In re Gateway Learning Corp., the FTC alleged that Gateway committed unfair and deceptive trade practices by making retroactive changes to its privacy policy without informing customers and by violating its own privacy policy by selling customer information when it had said it would not. Gateway settled the complaint by entering into a consent decree with the FTC that required it to surrender some profits and placed restrictions upon Gateway for the following 20 years.Obama administration
During the Obama Administration, Jon Leibowitz served as the Chair.Sears Holdings case
In the 2009 case In the Matter of Sears Holdings Management Corp., the FTC alleged that a research software program provided by Sears was deceptive because it collected information about nearly all online behavior, a fact that was only disclosed in legalese, buried within the end user license agreement. The FTC secured a consent decree in the case.Money Now Funding / Cash4Businesses case
In September 2013, a federal court closed an elusive business opportunity scheme on the request of the FTC, namely "Money Now Funding"/"Cash4Businesses". The FTC alleged that the defendants misrepresented potential earnings, violated the National Do Not Call Register, and violated the FTC's Business Opportunity Rule in preventing a fair consumer evaluation of the business. This was one of the first definitive actions taken by any regulator against a company engaging in transaction laundering, where almost US$6 million were processed illicitly.In December 2018, two defendants, Nikolas Mihilli and Dynasty Merchants, LLC, settled with the FTC. They were banned from processing credit card transactions, though the initial monetary judgment of $5.8 million was suspended due to the defendant's inability to pay.
OMICS Publishing Group case
In 2016, the FTC launched action against the academic journal publisher OMICS Publishing Group for producing predatory journals and organizing predatory conferences. This action, partly in response to ongoing pressure from the academic community, is the first action taken by the FTC against an academic journal publisher.The complaint alleges that the defendants have been "deceiving academics and researchers about the nature of its publications and hiding publication fees ranging from hundreds to thousands of dollars". It additionally notes that "OMICS regularly advertises conferences featuring academic experts who were never scheduled to appear in order to attract registrants" and that attendees "spend hundreds or thousands of dollars on registration fees and travel costs to attend these scientific conferences." Manuscripts are also sometimes held hostage, with OMICS refusing to allow submissions to be withdrawn and thereby preventing resubmission to another journal for consideration. Library scientist Jeffrey Beall has described OMICS as among the most egregious of predatory publishers. In November 2017, a federal court in the Court for the District of Nevada granted a preliminary injunction that:
In April 2019, the court imposed a fine of US$50.1 million on OMICS companies for unfair and deceptive business practices.