[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 156 (2010), Part 13]
[Senate]
[Pages 17957-17958]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                RESTORE ONLINE SHOPPERS' CONFIDENCE ACT

 Mrs. HUTCHISON. Mr. President, I wish to engage my colleague 
Senator Rockefeller in a colloquy. There have been some questions 
raised about how S. 3386, the Restore Online Shoppers' Confidence Act, 
affects a company that sells its business entirely or enters into a 
deal with another company to ``step into the first company's shoes'' 
and provide the products or services to consumers that were previously 
provided by the first company. I would ask the chairman to explain the 
intent of the legislation.
  Mr. ROCKEFELLER. This legislation is not intended to limit a 
company's ability to provide its customers with a seamless transition 
when a company sells its assets or arranges to have a new entity 
provide the products and services it previously provided to its 
customers.
  Mrs. HUTCHISON. I thank the Senator. Questions have also been raised 
about how this bill would affect an online company that bills its 
customers monthly for an ongoing service and decides to enter into a 
deal with another company to provide the backend billing and other 
services to those same customers. What is the intent of the 
legislation?
  Mr. ROCKEFELLER. The bill would not consider the company providing 
backend billing and other services for the initial merchant to be a 
posttransaction third party seller. Therefore, the provisions of the 
bill governing post-transaction third party sellers would not apply.
  This legislation is intended to prevent the kind of fraudulent 
transactions the Commerce Committee exposed in its recent 
investigation--where a consumer intentionally purchases products or 
services from one company and ends up unknowingly purchasing products 
or services from a different, unrelated company. As we

[[Page 17958]]

have discussed, this bill is not intended to prevent a company from 
making a business deal that would provide continuity of service to its 
customers by entering into a business arrangement that gives another 
company the right to deliver products and services intentionally 
purchased by consumers and to bill for those products and services.
  Mrs. HUTCHISON. I thank the Senator for those clarifications.

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