[Federal Register Volume 86, Number 6 (Monday, January 11, 2021)]
[Notices]
[Pages 1971-1973]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2021-00214]
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FEDERAL TRADE COMMISSION
Agency Information Collection Activities; Proposed Collection;
Comment Request; Extension
AGENCY: Federal Trade Commission.
ACTION: Notice.
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SUMMARY: In accordance with the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995
(``PRA''), the Federal Trade Commission (``FTC'' or ``Commission'') is
seeking public comment on its proposal to extend for an additional
three years the Office of Management and Budget clearance for
information collection requirements pertaining to the Commission's
administrative activities, consisting of: (a) Responding to
applications to the Commission pursuant to the Commission's Rules of
Practice (Parts 1 and 4); (b) the FTC's consumer reporting systems; and
(c) the FTC's program evaluation activities. The current clearance
expires on May 31, 2021.
DATES: Comments must be filed by March 12, 2021.
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 ``Paperwork Reduction
Act: FTC File No. P072108,'' on your comment and file your comment
online at https://www.regulations.gov, by following the instructions on
the web-based form. If you prefer to file your comment on paper, mail
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: Kenny Wright, Attorney, Office of the
General Counsel, (202) 326-2907, 600 Pennsylvania Ave. NW, Washington,
DC 20580.
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: Title of Collection: FTC Administrative
Activities.
OMB Control Number: 3084-0169.
Type of Review: Extension of a currently approved collection.
Affected Public: Private Sector: Businesses and other for-profit
entities.
Estimated Annual Burden Hours: 452,318 hours.
Estimated Annual Labor Costs: $26,890.
Discussion
Pursuant to its Rules of Practice, the Commission collects
information to carry out its administrative responsibilities. Any
person, partnership, or corporation may request advice from the
Commission or FTC staff regarding a course of action the requester
contemplates. The Commission's rules require requesters to provide the
information necessary to facilitate resolution of the requests,
including information on the question to be resolved, the identity of
the companies or persons involved, and other material facts. See FTC
Rule 1.2, 16 CFR 1.2. The FTC's ethics regulations require former
employees who are seeking ethical clearance to participate
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in FTC matters to submit screening affidavits to facilitate resolution
of their requests. See FTC Rule 4.1(b), 16 CFR 4.1(b). Requests to
participate must include, among other things, a description of the
proceeding in which participation is contemplated; the name of the
Commission office or division in which the former employee was employed
and the position the employee occupied; and a statement whether, while
employed by the Commission, the former employee participated in any
proceeding or investigation concerning the same company, individual, or
industry currently involved in the matter in question. These
requirements prevent the improper use of confidential nonpublic
information acquired while working at the FTC. The Commission's Rules
of Practice also authorize outside parties to request employee
testimony, through compulsory process or otherwise, and to request
documentary material through compulsory process in cases or matters to
which the agency is not a party. See FTC Rule 4.11(e), 16 CFR 4.11(e).
These rules require persons seeking testimony or material from the
Commission to submit a statement in support of the request setting
forth the party's interest in the case or matter, the relevance of the
desired testimony or material, and a discussion of whether it is
reasonably available from other sources.
The Commission receives approximately 55 such requests annually.
Staff estimates respondents will incur, on average, approximately 2
hours of burden to submit a request, resulting in a cumulative 110
burden hours per year (55 requests x 2 burden hours). Based on an
estimated average wage of $145/hour for executive and attorney wages,
staff estimates a total annual cost burden of $15,950 (110 hours x
$145). Staff estimates that requesters would incur no capital, start-
up, operation, maintenance, or other similar costs associated with
submitting covered requests.
The FTC also allows consumers to report fraud, identity theft,
National Do Not Call Registry violations, and other violations of law
through telephone hotlines and three online consumer report forms.
Consumers may call a hotline phone number or log on to the FTC's
website to report violations using the applicable reporting forms. The
provision of this information is voluntary. The FTC also conducts
customer satisfaction surveys regarding the support that the
Commission's Consumer Response Center provides to consumers to obtain
information about the overall effectiveness of the call center and
online complaint intake forms. This information assists Bureau of
Consumer Protection staff in carrying out the agency's consumer
protection mission. The FTC is also mandated by Congress under the
Identity Theft and Assumption Deterrence Act of 1998, 18 U.S.C. 1001 et
seq., to serve as the central clearinghouse for identity theft
complaints.
The time necessary to file a consumer report or participate in
related customer satisfaction surveys will vary. FTC staff estimates
that approximately 7,750,841 respondents will submit information
pursuant to these processes and that the associated burden will be
452,131 hours per year over the course of the three-year clearance. The
cost per respondent to file a complaint is negligible. Participation is
voluntary and will not require any labor expenditures by respondents.
In addition, there are no capital, start-up, operation, maintenance, or
other similar costs for respondents.
The FTC also conducts evaluations of its competition advocacy
program and the effectiveness of its merger divestiture orders. The
FTC's Competition Advocacy Program draws on the Commission's expertise
in competition and consumer protection matters to encourage federal and
state legislatures, courts, and other state and federal agencies to
consider the effects of proposed actions on consumers and competition.
Statutory authority for the advocacy program is found in part in
sections 6(a) and (f) of the FTC Act. 15 U.S.C. 46(a) and (f). The
FTC's Office of Policy and Planning evaluates the effectiveness of
these advocacy comments by sending questionnaires to selected comment
recipients. FTC staff sends questionnaires to approximately 20
respondents per year. FTC staff estimates that, on average, respondents
will need 15 minutes or less to complete a questionnaire, yielding a
cumulative burden of 5 burden hours (20 respondents per year x 15
minutes per respondent). FTC staff estimates an hourly labor cost of
$100 for the time spent by survey participants (primarily, staff at
state and federal agencies or members of federal and state legislatures
and their staff). Thus, staff estimates a total labor cost of $25 for
each response (15 minutes x $100 per hour). This yields a cumulative
yearly labor costs will be approximately $500 (20 respondents x $25 per
response). FTC staff estimates that respondents would incur no capital,
start-up, operation, maintenance, or other similar costs for respondent
to these questionnaires.
Following an order of divestiture in a merger matter, the FTC's
Bureau of Competition's Compliance Division conducts brief calls with
acquirers of divested assets to assess the effectiveness of these
divestitures. The Commission issues, on average, 15-17 orders in merger
cases per year that require divestitures or other remedies. For
interviews with purchasers of divested assets, each interview typically
takes less than one hour to complete. FTC staff estimates that it takes
each participant no more than one hour to prepare for the interview.
Accordingly, staff estimates that, for each interview, two individuals
(typically a company executive and an attorney) will devote two hours
each (one hour preparing and one hour participating) to responding to
questions for a total of four hours. Assuming that staff evaluates
approximately 17 divestitures per year during the three-year clearance
period, staff estimates that the total hours burden will be 68 hours
per year (17 divestiture reviews x 4 hours for preparing and
participating). Staff may include approximately two monitor interviews
a year, which would add at most 4 hours (2 interviews x 2 hours for
preparing and participating). Interviews of monitors typically involve
only the monitor and take approximately one hour to complete with no
more than one hour to prepare for the interview. This yields a total
burden of 72 burden hours per year. Staff estimates that the total
annual labor cost, based on an estimated average of $145/hour for
executive and attorney wages, would be $10,440 (72 hours x $145). There
are no capital, start-up, operation, maintenance, or other similar
costs to respondents.
Request for Comment
Pursuant to Section 3506(c)(2)(A) of the PRA, the FTC invites
comments on: (1) Whether the disclosure requirements are necessary,
including whether the information will be practically useful; (2) the
accuracy of our burden estimates, including whether the methodology and
assumptions used are valid; (3) ways to enhance the quality, utility,
and clarity of the information to be collected; and (4) ways to
minimize the burden of providing the required information to consumers.
All comments should be filed as prescribed in the ADDRESSES section
above, and must be received on or before March 12, 2021.
You can file a comment online or on paper. For the Commission to
consider your comment, we must receive it on or before March 12, 2021.
Write ``Paperwork Reduction Act: FTC File No. P072108'' on your
comment. Postal mail addressed to the Commission is subject to delay
due to heightened security screening. As a result, we
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encourage you to submit your comments online. To make sure that the
Commission considers your online comment, you must file it through the
https://www.regulations.gov website by following the instructions on
the web-based form provided. Your comment, including your name and your
state--will be placed on the public record of this proceeding,
including the https://www.regulations.gov website.
If you file your comment on paper, write ``Paperwork Reduction Act:
FTC File No. P072108'' on your comment and on the envelope, and mail
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, Washington, DC 20024. If
possible, please submit your paper comment to the Commission by courier
or overnight service.
Because your comment will be placed on the public record, you are
solely responsible for making sure that your comment does not include
any sensitive or confidential information. In particular, your comment
should not include any sensitive personal information, such as your or
anyone else'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 does not include any sensitive health information, such as
medical records or other individually identifiable health information.
In addition, your comment should not include any ``trade secret or any
commercial or financial information which . . . is privileged or
confidential''--as provided by 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)--including in
particular competitively sensitive information such as costs, sales
statistics, inventories, formulas, patterns, devices, manufacturing
processes, or customer names.
Comments containing material for which confidential treatment is
requested must be filed in paper form, must be clearly labeled
``Confidential,'' and must comply with FTC Rule 4.9(c). 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). Your comment will be kept
confidential only if the General Counsel grants your request in
accordance with the law and the public interest. Once your comment has
been posted on the public website--as legally required by FTC Rule
4.9(b)--we cannot redact or remove your comment from the website,
unless you submit a confidentiality request that meets the requirements
for such treatment under FTC Rule 4.9(c), and the General Counsel
grants that request.
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 March 12,
2021. For information on the Commission's privacy policy, including
routine uses permitted by the Privacy Act, see https://www.ftc.gov/site-information/privacy-policy.
Josephine Liu,
Assistant General Counsel for Legal Counsel.
[FR Doc. 2021-00214 Filed 1-8-21; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 6750-01-P