FTC Chairwoman Ramirez Provides Testimony on Pending Consumer Protection Legislation

FTC

On May 24, FTC Chairwoman Edith Ramirez provided testimony before the U.S. House of Representatives on pending legislation pertaining to the agency’s jurisdiction to regulate certain marketplace areas affecting consumers. Consumer protection bills under consideration and discussed by Chairwoman Ramirez include, but are not limited to, (i) H.R. 5111, the Consumer Review Fairness Act, which, according to the FTC, “would help to prevent companies from silencing truthful consumer reviews or products and services”; (ii) H.R. 4526, the Stop Online Booking Scams Act, which would require online travel sites to provide disclosures regarding their affiliation with hotels; and (iii) H.R. 5104, the Better On-line Ticket Sales Act, which is intended to make sure that consumers (“not just scalpers with specialized software”) are able to purchase online tickets to certain events. Chairwoman Ramirez also provided insight regarding H.R. 5239, the Protecting Consumers in Commerce Act, which would remove the telecommunications common carrier exemption from the FTC Act. In support of H.R. 5239, Ramirez commented, “[r]emoving the exception from the FTC Act would enable the FTC to bring its extensive law enforcement experience to bear in protecting consumers of common carriage services against unfair and deceptive practices in the same way that it can protect against unfair and deceptive practices for other services.” Further expressing the FTC’s opposition to certain pending legislation, FTC Ramirez noted that H.R. 5109, the Clarifying Legality and Enforcement Action Reasoning Act, would require that the FTC submit to Congress an annual report regarding its consumer protection investigations, “describing both those that result in agency action as well as those that are closed.” Chairwoman Ramirez contends that submitting such a report would not only be time consuming and costly, but would risk harming the reputation of companies against whom the FTC did not take formal action.