Governments Role in Consumer Protection & Advertising

The first national regulatory efforts in the late 1800s were intended at punishment for, and the prevention of, abuses in the marketplace, antitrust violations, and price gouging. During the 20th century, government regulation became even more extensive, focusing not only on preventing certain kinds of practices, but also requiring that certain in service standards can and should be met. And the past 50 years, more than a dozen new regulatory agencies have been shaped at the national and state government levels, following the route of new regulatory statutes. Regulatory measures contact virtually every part of our lives.

The Federal Trade Commission(FTC) was created in 1914. It was created to ensure that there were no businesses that were anticompetitive; meaning that there wasn’t one company or business that was creating a monopoly. The FTC has three main goals; they are to protect consumers, maintain competition, and advance performance. They protect the consumers by preventing fraud and making sure businesses are fair in the marketplace. They maintain competition by preventing companies from merging together and creating a monopoly. Finally, they advance performance by advancing the FTC’s performance through organizational, personal, and management excellence. The FTC is very beneficial, and although not everybody knows about it, as a consumer it helps with the economy of every American. Throughout the years since it was created, there has been more laws added that help keep businesses

Advertising is protected by the First Amendment of the United States constitution. Conversely, advertising requires less control from the First Amendment, but requires the majority of control from the government and most importantly, the Federal Trade Commission. The Federal Trade Commission controls the content and images that are being advertised to consumers that seem to be exaggerated or just plain over the top. With that being said, false advertising is one of the biggest rising issues amongst many companies, celebrities, business, and much more. False advertising is when an individual(s) attempt to betray consumers into believing they are purchasing an absolutely amazing product, when in reality, they are

It also declares an “unfair method for the sake of competition that affects commerce, and also being involved in the deceptive acts which affect commerce, are declared unlawful.” The Don’s restaurant is rather famous and has great market value. This means that there must be competitors in the market for Don’s restaurant to participate in various acts. The truth will be known once the investigations have been made. Injustice and deception for the consumers symbolizes two separate areas of the FTC authority and enforcement. The FTC has the authority to overtake all the unfair techniques of the competition between the businesses (Macaulay, 1979).

One of the key components was that now, civil penalties could be assessed for failure to follow FTC’s orders, such as cease and desist orders, should the respondent ignore the order. Previously, they would just be sanctioned. In addition, the amendment to Section 5 was to include unfair and deceptive acts or practices. Prior to this passage of the Wheeler-Lea Act, it was the burden of the FTC to prove unfair methods of competition. The Wheeler-Lea Act expanded on the food and drug advertising, as well. (Brown, 1947)

1914: Clayton passes the Federal Trade Commission Act to invest trust activity and halt unfair behavior (false ads, adulteration.mislabeling, and bribes).

The Federal Trade Commission Act of 1914 (which also includes an Amendment known as the Wheeler-Lea Act of 1938)

During the Progressive Era, Regulatory Agencies fail to provide and do their work, legislation ere made with the purpose for the common good of the citizen that suffer from the big corporation abuse, most of the corporation state strict rule but never got to accomplish them or the personal was too much expensive. The Supreme Court during the United State v Knight Company state diminished the effectiveness of the Sherman Anti-Trust act by ruling that manufacturing was not an interstate commerce (Document 5). The Federal Trade Commission, an independent agency of the United State government, established in by the Federal Trade Commission Act. Its principal mission was the promotion of consumer protection and the elimination/prevention of anti-competitive

The Federal Trade Commission enforces a variety of federal antitrust and consumer protection laws. The Commission seeks to

What is the FTC? The FTC stands for Federal Trade Commission. The Federal Trade Commission is an independent federal agency created by Congress in 1914 to help prevent unfair business practices, deception, fair trade practices, and unfair competition. The FTC’s mission is to protect the consumers by enacting laws to ensure that businesses cannot cheat people out of money and keep businesses from being unethical and immoral. The FTC takes complaints about businesses and investigates them for fraud or unfair labor practices every year (Silbersack, 2013).

Antitrust law in the United States is a collection of federal and state government laws regulating the conduct and organization of business corporations with the intent to promote fair competition in an open-market economy for the benefit of the public. Congress passed the first antitrust statute, the Sherman Antitrust Act, in 1890 in response to the public outrage toward big business. In 1914, Congress passed two additional antitrust laws: the Federal Trade Commission Act and the Clayton Act. (The Antitrust Laws. Web.)

The FDA is authorized by Congress to enforce the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act and many other public health laws (FDA1). The agency monitors import, export, manufacture, storage, and sale of up to one trillion worth of goods yearly, at an average cost to taxpayers of about three dollars per person (FDA1). Before FDA was created, the power to regulate was given to the individual states (fda 1). The federal government did little to nothing, while

This essay will review the Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations 2008 (as amended) (‘CPUTs’) to assess how they are responsible for the operation of the Internal Market and consider whether the CPUTs have accomplished its objective of consumer protection. This essay will first explain the Internal Market and the significance of regulation and then proceed to demonstrate how the CPUTs enable the Internal Market to function properly and its protection of consumers.

In the late 1960’s, the FTC was a paper tiger. Ralph Nader, who began the consumer protection movement in this country with the publication of Unsafe At Any Speed, was a sharp critic of the Federal Trade Commission for its lack of consumer protection. Specifically, the FTC was criticized because it relied too heavily on consumer complaints and brought enforcement actions only on a case-by-case basis. The consumer protection movement wanted the FTC to proceed against entire industries rather than individual businesses.

Direct Marketing is a legislation which may affect marketing within the converging environment. The majority of direct marketing activities are regulated by federal or state laws. Before a business conducts direct marketing, checks should be conducted to make sure they comply with the Privacy Legislation and Spam Regulations