1.3: Consumer Education
Prevent consumer injury through education Other Information:
Consumer 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 year
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