Federal Trade Commission Privacy Law and Policy (FTCPL&P) is my 2016 book on the FTC. It is really two books. The first part details the agency’s consumer protection history from its founding, and in so doing, it sets the context for the FTC’s powers and how it is apt to apply them. The book has an institutional analysis discussing the internal dynamics that shape agency behavior. It details how the FTC policed advertising with treatments of substantiation, the Chicago School debates, the problem of advertising to children, and the Reagan revolution. The second part of the book explains the FTC’s approach to privacy in different contexts (online privacy, security, financial, children’s, marketing, and international). One thesis of the book is that the FTC has adapted its decades of advertising law cases to the problem of privacy. There are advantages and disadvantages to the advertising law approach, but do understand that if you are a privacy lawyer, you are really an advertising law lawyer 
FTCPL&P has been reviewed in the Journal of Economic Literature, the ABA Antitrust Source, the European Data Protection Law Review, World Competition, and the International Journal of Constitutional Law. offers comprehensive consulting, management, design, and research solutions. Every architectural endeavor is an opportunity to shape the future
FTC Posts
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Agency Operating Cost and Recovery of Monetary Relief
The FTC proclaimed in 2014 that, “Over the past 3 years…the FTC returned over $196 million to victims of deceptive or unfair practices and forwarded $117 million to the U.S. Treasury.” But during this period, operating the agency cost taxpayers over $900 million. Actually collecting on the FTC’s many judgments and settlements is a major…
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What is the FTC’s Mission?
Thomas K. McCraw observed in 1984 that, “…the FTC had many parents, but it captured the special attention of none. Troubled in its infancy, awkward in adolescence, clumsy in adulthood, the agency never found a coherent mission for itself…The primary reason behind [fusion_builder_container hundred_percent=”yes” overflow=”visible”][fusion_builder_row][fusion_builder_column type=”1_1″ background_position=”left top” background_color=”” border_size=”” border_color=”” border_style=”solid” spacing=”yes” background_image=”” background_repeat=”no-repeat”…
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Kudos for FTC Privacy Law and Policy
[fusion_builder_container hundred_percent=”yes” overflow=”visible”][fusion_builder_row][fusion_builder_column type=”1_1″ background_position=”left top” background_color=”” border_size=”” border_color=”” border_style=”solid” spacing=”yes” background_image=”” background_repeat=”no-repeat” padding=”” margin_top=”0px” margin_bottom=”0px” class=”” id=”” animation_type=”” animation_speed=”0.3″ animation_direction=”left” hide_on_mobile=”no” center_content=”no” min_height=”none”][fusion_testimonial name=”Daniel J. Solove, John Marshall Harlan Research Professor of Law, George Washington University, Washington DC” design=“classic” avatar=“male”]Chris Hoofnagle has written the definitive book about the FTC’s involvement in privacy and security.…
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The Failure of the Infomediaries
Back in the 1990s, technologists proposed that privacy be dealt with through “infomediaries,” companies that would negotiate on behalf of the consumer to protect privacy and other rights. For instance, in a 1997 editorial, Esther Dyson argued that infomediaries were superior to self-regulation, privacy laws (ineffective because of the global nature of the internet), and…
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A Fraud’s Gallery
[fusion_builder_container hundred_percent=”yes” overflow=”visible”][fusion_builder_row][fusion_builder_column type=”1_1″ background_position=”left top” background_color=”” border_size=”” border_color=”” border_style=”solid” spacing=”yes” background_image=”” background_repeat=”no-repeat” padding=”” margin_top=”0px” margin_bottom=”0px” class=”” id=”” animation_type=”” animation_speed=”0.3″ animation_direction=”left” hide_on_mobile=”no” center_content=”no” min_height=”none”] Samuel Hopkins Adams’ seminal articles on the patent medicine industry ran in Collier’s magazine starting in 1905, and helped build the record for the 1906 Pure Food and Drugs Act, and…
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Controlling the power of the FTC
A 1981 study of the agency edited by Kenneth Clarkson and Timothy Muris (then FTC BCP Director and future Chairman), concluded that the FTC was largely uncontrolled by other branches of government. Clarkson argued that Congress had only a limited ability to oversee it, and that oversight and ad hoc monitoring rarely influenced the agency.[1] …
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On Swindling and Selling
All consumer protection experts should read Arthur Leff’s Swindling and Selling. Swindling and Selling is a classic, wry analysis of the blurry lines between what we consider honest salesmanship and illegal fraud. Not all selling is swindling, but all swindling is selling, Leff explains. He shows how both sellers and swindlers have to overcome similar…
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On Brand Advertising and Deception
[fusion_builder_container hundred_percent=”yes” overflow=”visible”][fusion_builder_row][fusion_builder_column type=”1_1″ background_position=”left top” background_color=”” border_size=”” border_color=”” border_style=”solid” spacing=”yes” background_image=”” background_repeat=”no-repeat” padding=”” margin_top=”0px” margin_bottom=”0px” class=”” id=”” animation_type=”” animation_speed=”0.3″ animation_direction=”left” hide_on_mobile=”no” center_content=”no” min_height=”none”] In 1971, five law students from George Washington University petitioned the FTC concerning objections to how branded products were marketed. The group, calling itself Students Against Misleading Enterprises (SAME), argued that,…
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The Slows
Since its inception, the FTC has been described as being too slow in resolving investigations. Henderson’s 1924 report argued that remedies for dishonest advertising must be immediate, but recounted a case that took almost four years from issuance of the complaint to preliminary injunction.[fusion_builder_container hundred_percent=”yes” overflow=”visible”][fusion_builder_row][fusion_builder_column type=”1_1″ background_position=”left top” background_color=”” border_size=”” border_color=”” border_style=”solid” spacing=”yes” background_image=””…
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Unfair Methods of Competition in the 1920s
A sample of “condemned” business practices the Agency identified in its 1920 annual report include:[1] Adulteration of commodities, misrepresenting them as pure or selling them under such names and circumstances that the purchaser would be misled into believing them to be pure. Procuring the business or trade secrets of competitors by espionage, by bribing their…
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Lobbying the FTC
The FTC, as with many other agencies, lacks the same kinds of lobbying disclosure rules applied to Congress. As a result, it is a venue for intense yet opaque lobbying and this has been the case since the Agency was founded. In particular, historically members of Congress have tried to influence the Commission. Professor William…
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Publishers’ Hair Shirt on Consumer Protection
Journalists lead great careers by exposing consumer rip-offs and corporate wrongdoings. American consumer movements always feature muckraking, popular reporting and editorial elucidating abuses of industries. But at the same time, news media industries often are of two minds on consumer protection, and sometimes seem to act to protect advertisers over consumers. In Samuel Hopkins Adams’…