[Federal Register Volume 76, Number 176 (Monday, September 12, 2011)]
[Notices]
[Pages 56196-56199]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2011-23250]


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FEDERAL TRADE COMMISSION


Agency Information Collection Activities; Proposed Collection; 
Comment Request

AGENCY: Federal Trade Commission.

ACTION: Notice.

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SUMMARY: The information collection requirements described below will 
be submitted to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for review, 
as required by the Paperwork Reduction Act (PRA). The Federal Trade 
Commission (FTC) is seeking public comments on its proposal to extend 
through December 31, 2014, the current OMB clearance for items (a)-(c) 
below setting out the information collection requirements pertaining to 
the Commission's administrative activities. That clearance expires on 
December 31, 2011, and consists of: (a) Applications to the Commission, 
including applications and notices contained in the Commission's Rules 
of Practice (primarily Parts I, II, and IV); (b) the FTC's consumer 
complaint systems; (c) the FTC's program evaluation activities and (d) 
the FTC's Applicant Background Form. The Commission is not seeking 
clearance renewal relating to item (d), the Applicant Background Form.

DATES: Comments must be filed by November 14, 2011.

ADDRESSES: Interested parties may file a comment online or on paper, by 
following the instructions in the Request for Comment part of the 
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION section below. Write ``Administrative 
Activities: FTC File No. P911409'' on your comment, and file your 
comment online at https://ftcpublic.commentworks.com/ftc/adminactivitiespra, by following the instructions on the Web-based 
form. If you prefer to file your comment on paper, mail or deliver your 
comment to the following address: Federal Trade Commission, Office of 
the Secretary, Room H-113 (Annex J), 600 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW., 
Washington, DC 20580.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Requests for additional information 
should be addressed to Nicholas

[[Page 56197]]

Mastrocinque (Nick M) and Ami Dziekan (Ami D), Division of Enforcement, 
Bureau of Consumer Protection, Federal Trade Commission, H-228, 600 
Pennsylvania Avenue, NW., Washington, DC 20580, Nick M: (202) 326-3188 
and Ami D: (202) 326-2648.

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: 

Proposed Information Collection Activities

    Under the PRA, 44 U.S.C. 3501-3521, Federal agencies must obtain 
approval from OMB for each collection of information they conduct or 
sponsor. ``Collection of information'' means agency requests or 
requirements that members of the public submit reports, keep records, 
or provide information to a third party. 44 U.S.C. 3502(3), 5 CFR 
1320.3(c). Because the number of entities affected by the Commission's 
requests will exceed ten, the Commission plans to seek OMB clearance 
under the PRA. As required by Sec.  3506(c)(2)(A) of the PRA, the 
Commission is providing this opportunity for public comment before 
requesting that OMB extend the existing paperwork clearance for the 
information collection requirements pertaining to the Commission's 
administrative activities (OMB Control Number 3084-0047).
    The Commission's Administrative Activities clearance consists of: 
(a) Applications to the Commission, including applications and notices 
contained in the Commission's Rules of Practice (primarily Parts I, II, 
and IV); (b) the FTC's consumer complaint systems; (c) FTC program 
evaluation activities; and (d) the FTC's Applicant Background Form. The 
FTC is not seeking clearance renewal relating to the Applicant 
Background Form. After the current clearance expires on December 31, 
2011, the FTC plans to use a different form that the Equal Employment 
Opportunity Commission (EEOC) is separately seeking PRA approval for 
from the OMB on behalf of several agencies including the FTC.

Request for Comments

    The FTC invites comments on: (1) Whether the proposed collection of 
information is necessary for the proper performance of the functions of 
the agency, including whether the information will have practical 
utility; (2) the accuracy of the agency's estimate of the burden of the 
proposed collection of information, including the validity of the 
methodology and assumptions used; (3) ways to enhance the quality, 
utility, and clarity of the information to be collected; and (4) ways 
to minimize the burden of the collection of information on those who 
are to respond, including through the use of appropriate automated, 
electronic, mechanical, or other technological collection techniques or 
other forms of information technology, e.g., permitting electronic 
submission of responses. All comments should be filed as prescribed in 
the ADDRESSES section above, and must be received on or before November 
14, 2011.
    You can file a comment online or on paper. For the Commission to 
consider your comment, we must receive it on or before November 14, 
2011. Write ``Administrative Activities: FTC File No. P911409'' on your 
comment. Your comment--including your name and your state--will be 
placed on the public record of this proceeding, including, to the 
extent practicable, on the public Commission Web site, at http://www.ftc.gov/os/publiccomments.shtm. As a matter of discretion, the 
Commission tries to remove individuals' home contact information from 
comments before placing them on the Commission Web site.
    Because your comment will be made public, you are solely 
responsible for making sure that your comment doesn't include any 
sensitive personal information, like anyone's Social Security number, 
date of birth, driver's license number or other state identification 
number or foreign country equivalent, passport number, financial 
account number, or credit or debit card number. You are also solely 
responsible for making sure that your comment doesn't include any 
sensitive health information, like medical records or other 
individually identifiable health information. In addition, don't 
include any ``[t]rade secret or any commercial or financial information 
which is obtained from any person and which is privileged or 
confidential,'' as provided in Section 6(f) of the FTC Act, 15 U.S.C. 
46(f), and FTC Rule 4.10(a)(2), 16 CFR 4.10(a)(2). In particular, don't 
include competitively sensitive information such as costs, sales 
statistics, inventories, formulas, patterns, devices, manufacturing 
processes, or customer names.
    If you want the Commission to give your comment confidential 
treatment, you must file it in paper form, with a request for 
confidential treatment, and you have to follow the procedure explained 
in FTC Rule 4.9(c), 16 CFR 4.9(c).\1\ Your comment will be kept 
confidential only if the FTC General Counsel, in his or her sole 
discretion, grants your request in accordance with the law and the 
public interest.
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    \1\ In particular, the written request for confidential 
treatment that accompanies the comment must include the factual and 
legal basis for the request, and must identify the specific portions 
of the comment to be withheld from the public record. See FTC Rule 
4.9(c), 16 CFR 4.9(c).
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    Postal mail addressed to the Commission is subject to delay due to 
heightened security screening. As a result, we encourage you to submit 
your comments online. To make sure that the Commission considers your 
online comment, you must file it at https://ftcpublic.commentworks.com/ftc/adminactivitiespra, by following the instructions on the Web-based 
form. If this Notice appears at http://www.regulations.gov, you also 
may file a comment through that Web site.
    If you file your comment on paper, write ``Administrative 
Activities: FTC File No. P911409'' on your comment and on the envelope, 
and mail or deliver it to the following address: Federal Trade 
Commission, Office of the Secretary, Room H-113 (Annex J), 600 
Pennsylvania Avenue, NW., Washington, DC 20580. If possible, submit 
your paper comment to the Commission by courier or overnight service.
    Visit the Commission Web site at http://www.ftc.gov to read this 
Notice and the news release describing it. The FTC Act and other laws 
that the Commission administers permit the collection of public 
comments to consider and use in this proceeding as appropriate. The 
Commission will consider all timely and responsive public comments that 
it receives on or before November 14, 2011. You can find more 
information, including routine uses permitted by the Privacy Act, in 
the Commission's privacy policy, at http://www.ftc.gov/ftc/privacy.htm.
    Estimated annual hours burden: 187,114 hours (150 + 186,884 + 65 + 
15).
    (a) Applications to the Commission, including applications and 
notices contained in the Commission's Rules of Practice: 150 hours.
    Most applications to the Commission generally fall within the ``law 
enforcement'' exception to the PRA and are mostly found in Part III 
(Rules of Practice for Adjudicative Proceedings) of the Commission's 
Rules of Practice. See 16 CFR 3.1-3.83. Nonetheless, there are various 
applications and notices to the Commission contained in other rules 
(generally in Parts I, II, and IV of the Commission's Rule of 
Practice). For example, staff estimates that the FTC annually receives 
approximately 10 requests for clearance submitted by former FTC 
employees in order to participate in certain matters and 5 screening 
affidavits submitted by partners or legal or business associates

[[Page 56198]]

of former employees pursuant to Rule 4.1, 16 CFR 4.1. There are also 
procedures set out in Rule 4.11(e) for agency review of outside 
requests for Commission employee testimony, through compulsory process 
or otherwise, in cases or matters to which the agency is not a party. 
Rule 4.11(e) requires that a person who seeks such testimony submit a 
statement in support of the request. Staff estimates that agency 
personnel receive approximately 1 request per month or 12 per year. 
Other types of applications and notices are either infrequent or 
difficult to quantify. Nonetheless, in order to cover any potential 
``collection of information'' for which separate clearance has not been 
sought, staff conservatively projects the FTC will receive 75 
applications or notices per year. Staff estimates each respondent will 
incur, on average, approximately 2 hours of burden to submit an 
application or notice, resulting in a cumulative annual total of 150 
burden hours (75 applications or notices x 2 burden hours).
    Annual cost burden:
    Using the burden hours estimated above, staff estimates that the 
total annual labor cost, based on a conservative estimated average of 
$460/hour for executives' and attorneys' wages, would be approximately 
$46,000 (100 hours x $460). There are no capital, start-up, operation, 
maintenance, or other similar costs to respondents.
    (b) Complaint Systems: 186,884 annual hours.

Consumer Response Center

    Consumers can submit complaints about fraud and other practices to 
the FTC's Consumer Response Center by telephone or through the FTC's 
Web site. Telephone complaints and inquiries to the FTC are answered 
both by FTC staff and contractors. These telephone counselors ask for 
the same information that consumers would enter on the applicable forms 
available on the FTC's Web site. For telephone inquiries and 
complaints, the FTC staff estimates that it takes 6.1 minutes per call 
to gather information, and an estimated 5.0 minutes for consumers to 
enter a complaint online. The burden estimate conservatively assumes 
that all of the phone call is devoted to collecting information from 
consumers, although frequently telephone counselors devote a small 
portion of the call to providing requested information to consumers.

Complaints Concerning the National Do Not Call Registry

    To receive complaints from consumers of possible violations of the 
rules governing the National Do Not Call Registry, 16 CFR 310.4(b), the 
FTC maintains both an online form and a toll free hotline with 
automated voice response system. Consumer complainants must provide the 
phone number that was called, whether the call was prerecorded, and the 
date and time of the call. They may also provide either the name or 
telephone number of the company about which they are complaining, their 
name and address so they can be contacted for additional information, 
as well as for a brief comment regarding their complaint. In addition, 
complainants have the option of answering three yes-or-no questions to 
help law enforcement investigating complaints. The FTC staff estimates 
that the time required of consumer complainants is 3.0 minutes for 
phone complaints and 2.5 minutes for online complaints.

Identity Theft

    To handle complaints about identity theft, the FTC must obtain more 
detailed information than is required of other complainants. Identity 
theft complaints generally require more information (such as a 
description of actions complainants have taken with credit bureaus, 
companies, and law enforcement, and the identification of multiple 
suspects) than general consumer complaints and fraud complaints. In 
addition, the FTC has expanded the information required on its online 
complaint form (such as collecting additional information about the 
fraudulent activity at affected companies and creating an attachment 
summarizing all of the fraudulent account activity as well as all 
fraudulent information on the consumer's credit report). Consumers can 
print out a copy of the revised form and use it to assist them in 
completing a police report, if appropriate, and, as also may be 
necessary, an identity theft report. See 16 CFR 603.3 (defining the 
term ``identity theft report''). FTC staff estimates that the revised 
online form takes consumers up to 15 minutes to complete.
    The FTC also made some revisions in the information it collects 
from consumers who call the Consumer Response Center (``CRC'') with 
identity theft complaints. Staff estimates that it will take 6.2 
minutes per call to obtain identity theft-related information. A 
substantial portion of identity theft-related calls typically consists 
of counseling consumers on other steps they should consider taking to 
obtain relief (which may include directing consumers to a revised 
online complaint form). The time needed for counseling is excluded from 
the estimate.

Surveys

    Consumer customer satisfaction surveys give the agency information 
about the overall effectiveness and timeliness of the CRC. Subsets of 
consumers contacted throughout the year are questioned about specific 
aspects of CRC customer service. Each consumer surveyed is asked 
several questions chosen from a list prepared by staff. The questions 
are designed to elicit information from consumers about the overall 
effectiveness of the call center and online complaint intake. Half of 
the questions ask consumers to rate CRC performance on a scale or 
require a yes-or-no response. The second half of the survey asks more 
open-ended questions seeking a short written or verbal answer. In 
addition, the CRC may survey a sample of consumers immediately after 
they file their complaints regarding the services they received. Staff 
estimates that each respondent will require 4.3 minutes to answer the 
questions during the phone survey and about 2.7 minutes for the online 
survey (approximately 20-30 seconds per question).
    What follows are staff's estimates of burden for these various 
collections of information, including the surveys. The figures for the 
online forms and consumer hotlines are an average of annualized volume 
for the respective programs including both current and projected 
volumes over the 3-year clearance period sought and the number of 
respondents for each activity has been rounded to the nearest thousand.

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                                                                                     Number of
                             Activity                                 Number of       Minutes/      Total hours
                                                                     Respondents      activity
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Misc. and fraud-related consumer complaints (phone)..............         262,000            6.1          26,724
Misc. and fraud-related consumer complaints (online).............         281,000            5            23,323
Do-Not-Call related consumer complaints (phone)..................         355,000            3.0          17,750
Do-Not-Call related consumer complaints (online).................       1,937,000            2.5          81,354

[[Page 56199]]

 
Identity theft complaints (phone)................................         212,000            6.2          21,836
Identity theft complaints (online)...............................          57,000           15            14,250
Customer Satisfaction Questionnaire (phone)......................           6,000            4.3             432
Customer Satisfaction Questionnaire (online).....................          27,000            2.7           1,215
                                                                  ----------------------------------------------
    Totals.......................................................       3,137,000  .............         186,884
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* Annual estimate for each of the three years.
** Number of consumer calls and online submissions are calculated by projecting over the 3-year clearance period
  sought 5% annual growth.

    Annual cost burden:
    The cost per respondent should be negligible. Participation is 
voluntary and will not require any labor expenditures by respondents. 
There are no capital, start-up, operation, maintenance, or other 
similar costs to the respondents.
    (c) Program Evaluations: 80 hours.
    Review of Divestiture Orders--65 hours.
    The Commission issues, on average, approximately 10-15 orders in 
merger cases per year that require divestitures. As a result of a 1999 
study authorized by the OMB and conducted by the staffs of the Bureau 
of Competition (``BC'') and the Bureau of Economics, as well as more 
recent experience, BC monitors these required divestitures by 
interviewing representatives of the Commission-approved buyers of the 
divested assets within the first year after the divestiture is 
completed.
    BC staff interviews representatives of the buyers to ask whether 
all assets required to be divested were, in fact, divested; whether the 
buyer has used the divested assets to enter the market of concern to 
the Commission and, if so, the extent to which the buyer is 
participating in the market; whether the divestiture met the buyer's 
expectations; and whether the buyer believes the divestiture has been 
successful. In a few cases, BC staff may also interview monitor 
trustees, if appropriate. In all these interviews, staff seeks to learn 
about pricing and other basic facts regarding competition in the 
markets of concern to the FTC.
    Participation by the buyers is voluntary. Each responding company 
designates the company representative most likely to have the necessary 
information; typically, a company executive and a lawyer represent the 
company. Each interview takes less than one hour to complete. BC staff 
further estimates that it takes each participant no more than one hour 
to prepare for the interview. Staff conservatively estimates that, for 
each interview of the responding company, two individuals (a company 
executive and a lawyer) will devote two hours (one hour preparing and 
one hour participating) each to responding to questions for a total of 
four hours. Interviews of monitor trustees typically involve only the 
monitor trustee and take approximately one hour to complete with no 
more than one hour to prepare for the interview. Assuming that staff 
evaluates approximately 15 divestitures per year during the three-year 
clearance period, the total hours burden for the responding companies 
will be approximately 60 hours per year (15 divestiture reviews x 4 
hours for preparing and participating). Staff may include approximately 
2 monitor trustee interviews a year, which would add at most 4 hours (2 
interviews x 2 hours for preparing and participating.).
    Annual cost burden:
    Using the burden hours estimated above, staff estimates that the 
total annual labor cost, based on a conservative estimated average of 
$460/hour for executives' and attorneys' wages, would be approximately 
$30,000 (64 hours x $460). There are no capital, start-up, operation, 
maintenance, or other similar costs to respondents.
    Review of Competition Advocacy Program--15 hours.
    The FTC's competition advocacy program draws on the Commission's 
expertise in competition and consumer protection matters to encourage 
state and Federal legislators, agencies and regulatory officials, and 
courts to consider the effects of their decisions on competition and 
consumer welfare. The Commission and staff send approximately 20 
letters to such decision makers annually regarding the likely effects 
of various bills and regulations.
    In the past, the Office of Policy Planning (``OPP'') has evaluated 
the effectiveness of these advocacy comments by surveying comment 
recipients and other relevant decision makers. OPP intends to continue 
this evaluation by sending a paper or electronic questionnaire to 
relevant parties within a year after sending an advocacy. Most survey 
questions ask the respondent to agree or disagree with a statement 
concerning the advocacy comment that they received. Specifically, these 
questions ask about the consideration, content, influence, and public 
effect of our comments. The questionnaire also provides respondents 
with an opportunity to provide additional remarks regarding the 
comments they received, advocacy comments in general, and the outcome 
of the matter.
    OPP staff estimates that, on average, respondents will take 30 
minutes or less to complete the questionnaire. OPP staff estimates that 
15 minutes of administrative time will be necessary to prepare a survey 
for return via mail or e-mail. Accordingly, staff estimates that each 
respondent will incur 45 minutes of burden, resulting in a cumulative 
total of 15 burden hours per year (45 minutes of burden per respondent 
x 20 respondents per year). OPP staff does not intend to conduct any 
follow-up activities that would involve the respondents' participation.
    Annual cost burden:
    OPP staff estimates a conservative hourly labor cost of $100 for 
the time of the survey participants (primarily state representatives 
and senators) and an hourly labor cost of $17 for administrative 
support time. Thus, staff estimates a total labor cost of $54.25 for 
each response (30 minutes of burden at $100 per hour plus 15 minutes of 
burden at $17 per hour). Assuming 20 respondents will complete the 
questionnaire on an annual basis, staff estimates the total annual 
labor costs will be approximately $1,085 ($54.25 per response x 20 
respondents). There are no capital, start-up, operation, maintenance, 
or other similar costs to respondents.

Willard K. Tom,
General Counsel.
[FR Doc. 2011-23250 Filed 9-9-11; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 6750-01-P