2.3: Consumer Education
Prevent consumer injury through education Other Information:
Educating consumers and businesses about competition law and policy is a critical part of the FTC’s mission. Informing businesses
and their legal advisers about potential antitrust violations deters anticompetitive mergers and anticompetitive business
practices from being proposed and reduces businesses’ cost of compliance. Educating consumers about their rights and their
ability to bring violations to the FTC’s attention reduces the cost of identifying anticompetitive conduct. Providing consumers
and businesses with information about how antitrust enforcement benefits the common good also encourages cooperation with
the FTC’s investigations and enforcement actions. Strategies: • Educate consumers and businesses about antitrust issues through
traditional means such as guidelines, advisory opinions, reports, articles in professional or other publications, speeches,
and participation in professional organizations. • Educate consumers through detailed information regarding agency actions
on the FTC Web site, and in press releases, reports, articles, and other publications. • Educate businesses through detailed
information regarding agency actions on the FTC Web site, and in press releases, reports, articles, and other publications.
• Continue to conduct and disseminate the results of public hearings, conferences, and workshops on practices and developments
in the marketplace and the results of economic research on how markets operate. • Continue to enhance avenues of communication
with consumers and business, such as email and the FTC Web site. • Ensure that the content of complaints, press releases,
and analyses to aid public comment are “transparent,” that is, that they explain in sufficient detail and with sufficient
clarity the evidence and theory of a case, within the constraints of confidentiality requirements. • Expand the use of other
public statements to explain why the Commission elected not to take enforcement action in certain matters to further improve
the public’s understanding of the FTC’s enforcement policies. • Engage in outreach to lay groups such as schools to provide
information about the work of the FTC and basic principles of economics and competition. • Engage in outreach to foreign competition
agencies to facilitate the agency’s efforts to promote convergence toward sound consumer-welfare-based competition enforcement
and policy. Annual and Five-Year Performance Measures: - Track annual volume of traffic on the ftc.gov antitrust related pages
that are relevant to policymakers, the business and legal communities, and the public at large - Track number of times print
media publish articles that refer to FTC competition activities and the circulation of the media that publish those articles
each year
Indicator(s):
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