[Federal Register Volume 79, Number 220 (Friday, November 14, 2014)]
[Notices]
[Pages 68245-68248]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2014-27013]


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FEDERAL TRADE COMMISSION


Agency Information Collection Activities; Proposed Collection; 
Comment Request

AGENCY: Federal Trade Commission (FTC or 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 FTC seeks public 
comments on its proposal to extend for three years the current PRA 
clearance for information collection requirements pertaining to the 
Commission's administrative activities. That clearance expires on 
February 28, 2015, 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; and (c) the FTC's program evaluation activities.

DATES: Comments must be received on or before January 13, 2015.

ADDRESSES: Interested parties may file a comment online or on paper by 
following the instructions in the Request for Comments 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, 600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW., Suite CC-5610 (Annex J), 
Washington, DC 20580, or deliver your comment to the following address: 
Federal Trade Commission, Office of the Secretary, Constitution Center, 
400 7th Street SW., 5th Floor, Suite 5610 (Annex J), Washington, DC 
20024.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Requests for copies of the collection 
of information and supporting documentation should be addressed to 
Nicholas Mastrocinque (Nick M) and Ami Dziekan (Ami D), Bureau of 
Consumer Protection, Federal Trade Commission, Mail Code CC-9232, 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 Paperwork Reduction Act (PRA), 44 U.S.C. 3501-3520, 
federal agencies must get OMB approval for each collection of 
information they conduct, sponsor, or require. ``Collection of 
information'' means agency requests or requirements to submit reports, 
keep records, or provide information to a third party. 44 U.S.C. 
3502(3); 5 CFR 1320.3(c). As required by section 3506(c)(2)(A) of the 
PRA, the FTC is providing this opportunity for public comment before 
requesting that OMB extend the existing PRA 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; and (c) FTC program 
evaluation activities.
    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. All comments must be received on or before January 13, 
2015.
    Estimated annual hours burden: 223,101 hours (400 + 222,622 + 64 + 
15).
    (a) Applications to the Commission, including applications and 
notices supported pursuant to the Commission's Rules of Practice: 400 
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 15 requests for clearance submitted by former FTC 
employees in order to participate in certain matters and screening 
affidavits submitted by partners or legal or business associates 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

[[Page 68246]]

testimony submit a statement in support of the request. Staff estimates 
that agency personnel receive approximately 125 requests 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 200 
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 400 
burden hours (200 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 an estimated average of $115/hour for 
executives' and attorneys' wages, would be approximately $46,000 (400 
hours x $115).\1\ There are no capital, start-up, operation, 
maintenance, or other similar costs to respondents.
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    \1\ Figures based on national median salaries, including bonuses 
and benefits, divided by a 2,080 hour work year (52 weeks x 40 
hours/week), for a ``Managing Attorney,'' ``Attorney II,'' 
``Attorney III,'' ``Attorney IV,'' and ``Attorney V'' at 
www.salary.com.
    \2\ This category includes online customer satisfaction surveys 
by ForeSee, Inc., for ftccomplaintassistant.gov.
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    (b) Complaint Systems: 222,622 annual hours.

Consumer Response Center (CRC)

    Consumers can submit complaints about fraud and other practices to 
the FTC's Consumer Response Center by telephone or through an online 
complaint form at 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. 
The FTC also hosts a second online complaint form called econsumer.gov. 
This form accepts cross-border complaints from consumers through the 
econsumer.gov Web site and transmits them into the Consumer Sentinel 
Network. For telephone inquiries and complaints, the FTC staff 
estimates that it takes 5.9 minutes per call to gather information, and 
an estimated 5.3 minutes for consumers to enter a complaint online. The 
burden estimate conservatively assumes that the entire phone call is 
devoted to collecting information from consumers, although frequently 
telephone counselors devote a portion of the call to providing 
requested information to consumers.
    As of 2014, the FTC now supports web chat for its online complaint 
process. Web chat allows consumers to communicate in real time using an 
easily accessible web interface to obtain technical support for the 
online complaint process. This feature will enable the FTC to retain 
consumer complaints from consumers who might otherwise abandon the 
process. Staff estimates that it will take an average of 5 minutes per 
chat session to obtain the necessary technical support.

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 to the National Do Not 
Call Registry is 3 minutes for phone complaints and 2 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. FTC 
staff estimates that the online identity theft complaint form takes 
consumers up to 8.5 minutes to complete.
    For consumers who call the CRC with an identity theft complaint, 
staff estimates that it will take 6.4 minutes per call to obtain 
complaint information. A substantial portion of identity theft-related 
calls typically consists of counseling consumers on other steps they 
should consider taking to obtain relief. 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 FTC call center 
and online complaint process. An entity called Customer Feedback 
Insights contacts subsets of consumers throughout the year with several 
preapproved questions to elicit information from consumers about the 
overall effectiveness of the phone complaint process. Current estimates 
are that each respondent will require 4.4 minutes to answer the 
questions during the phone survey and about 2.7 minutes for the online 
survey (approximately 20-30 seconds per question).
    In addition, the FTC currently uses ForeSee, Inc. for online 
customer satisfaction surveys on ftccomplaintassistant.gov. It randomly 
selects consumers to take part in a brief survey to provide feedback 
about the Web site. Estimates relating to ForeSee surveys are included 
under ``Misc. and fraud-related consumer complaints (Web chat)'' in the 
table below.
    The FTC also plans to send an electronic survey to all Consumer 
Sentinel Network users to identify areas where the system is 
satisfactory and where it can improve. Staff estimates the survey to 
not take more than 5 minutes to complete.
    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 three-year clearance period sought and the number of 
respondents for each activity has been rounded to the nearest thousand.

[[Page 68247]]



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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).............         367,000             5.9          36,088
Misc. and fraud-related consumer complaints (online)............         221,000             5.3          19,522
Misc. and fraud-related consumer complaints (Web chat) \2\......          31,200             5.0           2,600
Do-Not-Call related consumer complaints (phone).................         627,000             3.0          31,350
Do-Not-Call related consumer complaints (online)................       2,860,000             2.0          95,333
Identity theft complaints (phone)...............................         224,000             6.4          23,893
Identity theft complaints (online)..............................          88,000             8.5          12,467
Customer Satisfaction Questionnaire (phone).....................           8,000             4.4             587
Customer Satisfaction Questionnaire (online)....................          17,000             2.7             765
Consumer Sentinel Network Survey................................             200             5.0              17
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    Totals......................................................       3,855,400  ..............         222,622
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    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: 79 hours.

Review of Divestiture Orders--64 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 Office of Management and Budget (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 an attorney 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 an attorney) 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 
$135/hour for executives' and attorneys' wages, would be approximately 
$8,640 (64 hours x $135).\3\ There are no capital, start-up, operation, 
maintenance, or other similar costs to respondents.
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    \3\ See supra note 1 (attorney salary source data for ``Managing 
Attorney'').
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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. These survey results are also included in the FTC's 
internal performance management indicators, and are used to guide the 
FTC's selection and prioritization of future competition advocacy 
opportunities.
    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 email. 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 $20 for administrative 
support time. Thus, staff estimates a total labor cost of $55 for

[[Page 68248]]

each response (30 minutes of burden at $100 per hour plus 15 minutes of 
burden at $20 per hour). Assuming 20 respondents will complete the 
questionnaire on an annual basis, staff estimates the total annual 
labor costs will be approximately $1,100 ($55 per response x 20 
respondents). There are no capital, start-up, operation, maintenance, 
or other similar costs to respondents.

Request for Comments

    You can file a comment online or on paper. 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 does not include any 
sensitive personal information, like a 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 any comment does not include sensitive health 
information, like medical records or other individually identifiable 
health information. In addition, do not include any ``[t]rade secret or 
any commercial or financial information which is . . . privileged or 
confidential,'' as discussed 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, do 
not 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 must follow the procedure explained in 
FTC Rule 4.9(c), 16 CFR 4.9(c).\4\ 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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    \4\ 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, the Commission encourages 
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, 600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW., Suite 
CC-5610 (Annex J), Washington, DC 20580, or deliver your comment to the 
following address: Federal Trade Commission, Office of the Secretary, 
Constitution Center, 400 7th Street SW., 5th Floor, Suite 5610 (Annex 
J), Washington, DC 20024. If possible, submit your paper comment to the 
Commission by courier or overnight service. 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 January 13, 2015. 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.

Christian S. White,
Deputy General Counsel for Legal Counsel.
[FR Doc. 2014-27013 Filed 11-13-14; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 6750-01-P