United States - Chairwoman Ramirez Addresses Trans Atlantic Consumer Dialogue at Special Meeting on Consumer Protection and Transatlantic Trade Negotiations

FTC Chairwoman Ramirez on October 29 addressed consumer advocates, government officials from the U.S. and the EU, and other stakeholders at a special event in Brussels organized by the Trans Atlantic Consumer Dialogue (TACD). TACD is a forum for U.S. and EU consumer organizations that develops and agrees on joint consumer policy recommendations to the U.S. government and the European Union. This year's TACD event addressed consumer issues in the U.S.-EU Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership negotiations. The United States Office of the Trade Representative, which leads trade negotiations for the U.S., also participated.

In her speech on "Protecting Consumers and Competition in a New Era of Transatlantic Trade", Chairwoman Ramirez noted that the FTC's consumer protection and competition mandates have many links to trade, even though the FTC does not negotiate trade agreements on behalf of the United States. These links are especially important as commerce becomes more and more global. The Chairwoman suggested that transatlantic trade will continue to flourish and grow only if consumers on both sides of the Atlantic feel confident and empowered, and described some of the FTC's work on privacy, consumer protection, ecommerce, and competition that has helped to achieve that goal.

In particular, Chairwoman Ramirez focused on the FTC's privacy enforcement program, describing the FTC's efforts to protect consumer privacy vigorously in the commercial sphere. She described the FTC's track record on consumer privacy enforcement as "unrivaled" and provided statistics to bear this out: To date, the FTC has brought 134 spam and spyware cases, 108 Do Not Call cases against telemarketers, 97 FCRA lawsuits involving credit reporting problems, 47 data security cases, 44 general privacy lawsuits, and 21 actions under COPPA, the law mandating especially high standards of privacy protection when infomation involving children is involved.

The Chairwoman also addressed criticisms of the U.S.-EU Safe Harbor framework, which provides a mechanism for companies to transfer personal data from the EU to the U.S. She detailed the FTC's Safe Harbor enforcement program and described the FTC's landmark cases against Google, Facebook, and MySpace, which all alleged Safe Harbor violations. As the Chairwoman explained, the legally binding orders the FTC obtained in those three cases require the companies to institute comprehensive privacy programs to address privacy risks related to the development and management of new and existing products and services to consumers. The orders also subject the companeis to ongoing privacy audits, and, in case of violation, can result in hefty fines, such as $22.5 million fine the FTC obtained against Google. These orders against Google, Facebook, and MySpace remain in effect for twenty years and impose practices that protect over a billion users, hundreds of millions of whom reside in Europe. Chairwoman Ramirez also told the audience to expect more Safe Harbor enforcement actions in coming months.