[Federal Register Volume 64, Number 240 (Wednesday, December 15, 1999)] [Notices] [Pages 70031-70033] From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov] [FR Doc No: 99-32448] ======================================================================= ----------------------------------------------------------------------- FEDERAL TRADE COMMISSION Agency Information Collection Activities; Submission for OMB Review; Comment Request AGENCY: Federal Trade Commission (FTC). ACTION: Notice. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- SUMMARY: The FTC is submitting the information collection requirements of its Pay-Per-Call Rule, including certain proposed amendments, to the Office of [[Page 70032]] Management and Budget (OMB) for review and clearance under the Paperwork Reduction Act. DATES: Comments must be submitted on or before January 14, 2000. ADDRESSES: Send comments regarding the burden estimate, or any other aspect of the information collection, including suggestions for reducing the burden, to Edward Clarke, Senior Economist, Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, Office of Management and Budget, New Executive Office Building, Room 10202, Washington, DC 20503 and also to the Secretary, Federal Trade Commission, room H-159, 600 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW, Washington, DC 20580. All submissions should be captioned ``Pay-Per-Call Rule'' and be identified as responding to this notice. FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Alex Tang, Office of the General Counsel, FTC, 600 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW, Washington, DC 20580, (202) 326-2447. For information regarding the Pay-Per-Call rulemaking, contact Adam Cohn, (202) 326-3411, or Marianne Schwanke, (202) 326- 3165, Attorneys, Division of Marketing Practices, Bureau of Consumer Protection, FTC, 600 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW, Washington, DC 20580. A separate Supporting Statement that the Commission is also submitting to OMB will be made available on the Commission's public record of the Pay-Per-Call rulemaking proceeding and on the FTC's Web site, www.ftc.gov. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: On October 30, 1998, 63 FR 58524, the Commission published a notice of proposed rulemaking to amend its Pay- Per-Call Rule 16 CFR part 308.\1\ The rule, which implements Titles II and III of the Telephone Disclosure and Dispute Resolution Act, 15 U.S.C. 5711 et seq., requires the disclosure of cost and other information with regard to pay-per-call services and establishes dispute resolution procedures for telephone-billed purchases (i.e., charges for pay-per-call services or other charges appearing on a telephone bill other than common carrier toll charges). The Rule contains certain reporting and disclosure requirements that are subject to OMB review under the Paperwork Reduction Act (PRA), 44 U.S.C. 3501- 3520.\2\ OMB earlier approved the current information collection requirements under control number 3084-0102, which expires December 31, 1999. Pursuant to the PRA, the Commission is seeking renewed OMB approval for these requirements, including approval of the proposed amendments, until December 31, 2002. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- \1\ The Rule was originally promulgated as the ``Trade Regulation Rule Pursuant to the Telephone Disclosure and Dispute Resolution Act of 1992'' and was known as the ``900-Number Rule.'' It will be renamed the ``Trade Regulation Rule Concerning Pay-Per- Call Services and Other Telephone-Billed Purchases'' and is referred to in the Commission's notice of proposed rulemaking and in this document as the ``Pay-Per-Call Rule.'' \2\ Neither the Rule nor the proposed amendments contain any recordkeeping requirements that would be subject to the PRA. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- As required by the PRA, the Commission's notice of proposed rulemaking, 63 FR at 58556-57, invited public comment on the rule's information collection requirements and proposed amendments before their submission to OMB for approval. Although the Commission received no comments directly responding to the Commission's specific PRA questions, the Commission received one comment, from U.S. West, stating that its current cost for making an annual disclosure of dispute resolution procedures under the Rule was $53,000 and that this annual cost would increase to $819,000 if the disclosures were required with every billing cycle under a proposed amendment to Sec. 308.20(m)(1). This comment and others (available on the FTC's web site, www.ftc.gov) are being considered by the staff to determine whether to recommend that the Commission not adopt that proposed amendment so as to minimize the Rule's compliance burden. Pursuant to 44 U.S.C. 3507(a)(1)(D) and 5 CFR 1320.5(a)(1)(iv)(B), the Commission publishes the following additional information, and invites any further public comment to OMB and the Commission, regarding the information collection requirements and amendments being submitted to OMB. Title: Trade Regulation Rule Concerning Pay-Per-Call Services and Other Telephone-Billed Purchases (``Pay-Per-Call Rule''). Summary of the collection of information: Reporting and disclosure requirements to implement Titles II and III of the Telephone Disclosure and Dispute Resolution Act of 1992, as amended, 15 U.S.C. 5711, et seq., which requires the disclosure of cost and other information with regard to pay-per-call services and establishes dispute resolution procedures for telephone-billed purchases. Brief description of the need for and proposed use of the information: The reporting and disclosure requirements are mandated by statute and are necessary to help prevent unfair and deceptive acts and practices in the advertising and operation of pay-per-call services and in the collection of charges for telephone-billed purchases. The information obtained by the Commission pursuant to the reporting requirement is used for law enforcement purposes. The disclosure requirements ensure that consumers are adequately informed of the costs they can expect to incur in using a pay-per-call service, that they will not be liable for unauthorized non-toll charges on their telephone bills, and that they have certain dispute resolution rights and obligations with respect to such telephone-billed purchases. Likely respondents, including estimated number and proposed frequency of response: Respondents are common carriers (subject to the reporting requirement only), information providers (vendors) offering one or more pay-per-call services or programs, and billing entities. The Commission has previously estimated that it would request information pursuant to the reporting requirement from no more than approximately 25 common carriers per year, and that the disclosure requirements would apply to 20,000 information vendors and 1400 billing entities. As explained in its notice of proposed rulemaking, the Commission, in estimating burden hours, increased its estimates by 12 percent in order to account for industry growth in information vendors and/or pay-per-call services since OMB last approved the Rule's information collection requirements. Estimated annual reporting and recordkeeping burden: The total estimated annual hours burden is 3,630,060 hours for the current information collection requirements of the Rule and 1,500,400 additional burden hours for the proposed amendments,\3\ or a total of 5,130,460 burden hours. This burden consists entirely of reporting and disclosure requirements; the Rule does not impose any independent recordkeeping requirements. As noted above, the burden figures for the Rule's information collection requirements reflect an estimated 12 percent industry growth since OMB's previous approval of the requirements. The burden hour estimate for each requirement (i.e., reporting or disclosure) was then multiplied by a special ``blended'' wage rate (expressed in dollars per hour), based on the particular skill mix needed to carry out that requirement, to determine the total annual cost of that requirement. The blended rate [[Page 70033]] calculations were based on the following skill categories and average wage rates: $65/hour for professional (attorney) services; $15/hour for skilled clerical workers; $25/hour for computer programmers; and $50/ hour for management time. Annual burden hour estimates (and the estimated total cost of those hours) have been provided below. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- \3\ This figure was erroneously stated as ``1,499,200'' in the Commission's notice of proposed rulemaking. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- The burden estimates do not contain a separate set of figures for other annual ``cost'' burdens, if any--i.e., (a) capital and start-up costs or (b) operation, maintenance and purchase of outside services not already reflected in the above burden hour estimates and associated annual costs. Capital or start-up costs are generally subsumed in activities otherwise undertaken in the ordinary course of business (e.g., business records from which only existing information must be reported to the Commission, pay-per-call advertisements or audiotexts to which cost or other disclosures are added, etc.). To the extent that entities incur operating or maintenance expenses, or purchase outside services to satisfy the Rule's requirements, staff believe those expenses are also included in (or, if contracted out, would be comparable to) the burden hours and estimated annual burden estimates provided below (where such expenses are labor-related), or are otherwise included in the ordinary cost of doing business (where the expenses are other than labor-related). Reporting Requirement This requirement is currently set forth in Sec. 308.6 of the Rule, to be amended and redesignated Sec. 308.19(a). The estimated hours burden for this reporting requirement (i.e., to provide certain information to the Commission upon request) is 140 hours annually (based on 25 common carriers each spending 5 hours annually plus 12 percent) at an average wage rate of $65/hour (100 percent of each hour for attorney services) or a total annual cost of $9100. Disclosure Requirements (1) Advertising. The advertising disclosure requirements of the current Rule would be consolidated into Secs. 308.3, 308.4 and 308.7 of the Rule, as amended. The current estimated annual burden on the industry is 123,200 hours. As explained in the Commission's notice of proposed rulemaking, this figure reflects the Commission's original estimate of 20,000 vendors each making certain basic cost disclosures (one hour per disclosure) in three advertisements for pay-per-call services (60,000 burden hours total) plus one hour for an additional disclosure in each of the estimated 50 percent of ads that are directed to individuals under 18 (30,000 burden hours) and each of the estimated 30 percent of all pay-per-call ads relating to sweepstakes or information on federal programs (18,000 burden hours), or a total of 108,000 burden hours, which was rounded up to 110,000 and then increased to 123,200 hours to reflect 12 percent estimated industry growth. The total estimated annual cost of these burden hours is $4,743,200, using a blended wage rate of $38.50/hour (40 percent attorney services, 50 percent skilled clerical workers, and 10 percent for management time). Two proposed amendments, Secs. 308.4(a)(1)(iii)(B) and 308.6(b), would add 30,240 annual burden hours to the total, or a total annual cost of $1,164,240, using the blended wage rate of $38.50/hour explained above. The first of these amendments, requiring disclosures when a call is billed on a variable time rate basis, assumes that 20 percent of the estimated 67,200 advertised pay-per-call services (i.e., after the 12 percent increase) would need to contain such a disclosure, thereby accounting for 13,440 burden hours,\4\ at an annual cost of $517,440. The burden associated with the second amendment, requiring an audio signal to indicate (i.e., disclose) the end of free time used to advertise certain pay-per-call services, was estimated at 16,800 burden hours, assuming this requirement applies to 25 percent of advertised pay-per-call services, or an annual cost of $646,800. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- \4\ This figure was erroneously stated as ``12,240'' in the Commission's notice of proposed rulemaking. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- (2) Preamble. The Rule's existing preamble disclosure requirement, set forth in Sec. 308.9, imposes an estimated burden of 10 hours annually, for an annual burden of 672,000 burden hours based on 67,200 advertised pay-per-call services. The cost associated with these burden hours is $25,872,000, using a blended wage rate of $38.50/hour (i.e., similar to the blended rate used for advertising disclosures). As explained in the notice of proposed rulemaking, the estimated burden of a proposed amendment of the preamble disclosure requirement, Sec. 308.4(a)(2)(iii)(B), is one additional hour for approximately 30 percent of the advertised pay-per-call services, or an estimated 20,160 hours, for a total annual cost of $776,160. (3) Telephone-billed charges in billing statements. This requirement is currently set forth in Sec. 308.5(j) of the Rule, which the Commission proposes to redesignate and incorporate into Sec. 308.18, as amended. The blended rate used to calculate the cost of these disclosures was $45.50/hour (50 percent attorney services, 20 percent skilled clerical workers, 20 percent computer programming, and 10 percent for management time). The estimated annual burden of this disclosure requirement was 26,880 hours (i.e., 10 percent of 20,000 vendors making spot checks at 12 hours per spot check, or 24,000 burden hours, plus 12 percent), so the annual cost would be $1,223,040 As explained in the notice of proposed rulemaking, no additional burden is anticipated from any amendments of this requirement. (4) Dispute resolution procedures in billing statements. This disclosure requirement is currently set forth in Sec. 308.7(c), to be redesignated Sec. 308.20, as amended. The blended rate used for these disclosures was $32.50/hour (40 percent computer programming, 20 percent attorney services, 30 percent skilled clerical workers, and 10 percent for management time). As explained in the notice of proposed rulemaking, the estimated hour burden for the annual notice component of this requirement is 7,840 burden hours (based on 1,400 billing entities taking 4 hours to review, revise and provide disclosures annually, plus 12 percent), or a total cost of $254,800. An additional 2,800,000 burden hours would be associated with specific notices in those cases where a customer reports a billing error (i.e., 5 percent of an estimated 50 million calls plus 12 percent, requiring one hour per billing error), or $91,000,000 annually. The additional burden hours for proposed amendments to Sec. 308.2(i) and (j), requiring new disclosures of certain information regarding personal identification numbers issued to customers for access and billing purposes have been estimated at 50,000 hours or an annual cost of $1,625,000. The additional burden hours for proposed amendments to require certain new disclosures in connection with billing dispute resolution, Sec. 308.18(n)(2) and Sec. 308.18(n)(4), would entail 1,400,000 hours for an annual cost of $45,500,000. Debra A. Valentine, General Counsel. [FR Doc. 99-32448 Filed 12-14-99; 8:45 am] BILLING CODE 6705-01-M