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Federal Trade Commission home page
The FTC is the only federal agency with both consumer protection and competition jurisdiction in broad sectors of the economy. The FTC pursues vigorous and effective law enforcement; advances consumers’ interests by sharing its expertise with federal and state legislatures and U.S. and international government agencies; develops policy and research tools through hearings, workshops, and conferences; and creates practical and plain-language educational programs for consumers and businesses in a global marketplace with constantly changing technologies.
via URL
URL: http://www.ftc.gov/
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News, Competition, Consumer Protection, Economics, General Counsel, Actions, Congressional, Policy, International, All Actions (by date), Cases (by name), Documents, Rules.
Activities of the Federal Trade Commission:
The Bureau of Consumer Protection’s mandate is to protect consumers against "unfair" or deceptive acts or practices in commerce. Areas of principal concern for this bureau are: advertising and marketing, financial products and practices, telemarketing fraud, privacy and identity protection etc. The bureau also is responsible for the United States National Do Not Call Registry.
The Bureau of Competition is the division of the FTC charged with elimination and prevention of "anticompetitive" business practices. It accomplishes this through the enforcement of antitrust laws, review of proposed mergers, and investigation into other non-merger business practices that may impair competition.
The FTC carries out (parties) its mission by investigating issues raised by reports from consumers and businesses, pre-merger notification filings, congressional inquiries, or reports in the media. These issues include, for instance, false advertising and other forms of fraud. FTC investigations may pertain to a single company or an entire industry.
The Bureau of Economics http://www.ftc.gov/be/index.shtml was established to support the Bureau of Competition and Consumer Protection by providing expert knowledge related to the economic impacts of the FTC's legislation and operation. The Bureau provides economic analysis and support to antitrust and consumer protection investigations and rulemakings. The Bureau also analyzes the economic impact of government regulation, and provides Congress, the Executive Branch, and the public with policy recommendations relating to competition and consumer protection.
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[1] in July 1995 which cracked down on 100 business opportunity scams.
One of the Federal Trade Commission other large focuses is identity theft. The FTC serves as a federal repository for individual consumer complaints regarding identity theft. Even though the FTC does not resolve individual complaints, it does use the aggregated information to determine where federal action might be taken.
The Bureau hosts many events http://www.ftc.gov/be/events.shtm drawing together economists and other experts to advance economic thinking. Finally, the Bureau conducts market analysis in a variety of industries of importance to the economy and to consumers. Many of these are published as economic reports http://www.ftc.gov/be/econrpt.htm