[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]
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FEDERAL TRADE COMMISSION
Agency Information Collection Activities; Submission for OMB
Review; Comment Request
AGENCY: Federal Trade Commission (FTC).
ACTION: Notice.
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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.
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\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.
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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
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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.
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\3\ This figure was erroneously stated as ``1,499,200'' in the
Commission's notice of proposed rulemaking.
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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.
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\4\ This figure was erroneously stated as ``12,240'' in the
Commission's notice of proposed rulemaking.
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(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