2014-27013. Agency Information Collection Activities; Proposed Collection; Comment Request

AGENCY:

Federal Trade Commission (FTC or Commission).

ACTION:

Notice.

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: [phone] and Ami D: [phone].

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 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 × 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 × $115).^[1] There are no capital, start-up, operation, maintenance, or other similar costs to respondents.

(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.

Activity	Number of respondents	Number of minutes/ activity	Total hours
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
Totals	3,855,400		222,622

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 × 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 × 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 × $135).^[3] 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. 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 × 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 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 × 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.

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.

Footnotes

1.  Figures based on national median salaries, including bonuses and benefits, divided by a 2,080 hour work year (52 weeks × 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.

3.  See supra note 1 (attorney salary source data for “Managing Attorney”).

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).