Trade Regulation Rule on Impersonation of Government and Businesses

FEDERAL TRADE COMMISSION <CFR>16 CFR Part 461</CFR> <RIN>RIN 3084-AB71</RIN> <SUBJECT>Trade Regulation Rule on Impersonation of Government and Businesses </SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Federal Trade Commission. <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Initial notice of informal hearing; final notice of informal hearing; list of Hearing Participants; requests for submissions from Hearing Participants. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> The Federal Trade Commission (“FTC” or “Commission”) published a supplemental notice of proposed rulemaking (“SNPRM”) in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> on March 1, 2024, titled “Trade Regulation Rule on Impersonation of Government and Businesses” (“Rule”), which requested additional public comment on whether the Commission should revise the title of the Rule, add a prohibition on the impersonation of individuals, and extend liability for violations of the Rule to parties who provide goods and services with knowledge or reason to know that those goods or services will be used in impersonation schemes that violate the Rule. The SNPRM announced the opportunity for interested parties to present their positions orally at an informal hearing. Six commenters requested to participate at the informal hearing. The Commission has decided not to proceed with the SNPRM's proposed means and instrumentalities provision at this time. The purpose of the informal hearing will be to address issues relating to the proposed prohibition on impersonating individuals. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> <E T="03">Hearing date:</E> The informal hearing will be conducted virtually on January 17, 2025, at 1 p.m. Eastern. <E T="03">Participation deadline:</E> If you are a Hearing Participant and would like to submit your oral presentation in writing or file a supplementary documentary submission, you must do so on or before January 9, 2025. </EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> Hearing Participants may submit their oral presentations in writing or file supplementary documentary submissions, online or on paper, by following the instructions in part IV of the <E T="02">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION</E> section. Write “Impersonation SNPRM, R207000” on your submission and send it electronically to <E T="03">electronicfilings@ftc.gov,</E> with a copy to <E T="03">OALJ@ftc.gov. If you prefer to file your submission on paper, mail it via overnight service to:</E> Federal Trade Commission, Office of the Secretary, 600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW, Mail Stop H-144 (Annex I), Washington, DC 20580. <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Thomas Harris, <E T="03">tharris1@ftc.gov,</E> (202-326-3620), Claire Wack, <E T="03">cwack@ftc.gov,</E> (202-326-2836), and Ryan McAuliffe, <E T="03">rmcauliffe@ftc.gov,</E> (202-326-3044). </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">I. Background</HD> Following public comment on an advance notice of proposed rulemaking (“ANPRM”), 86 FR 72901 (Dec. 23, 2021), the FTC published a notice of proposed rulemaking (“NPRM”), 87 FR 62741 (Oct. 17, 2022), entitled “Trade Regulation Rule on Impersonation of Government and Business” (“Rule”), in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> , proposing to add part 461 to title 16 of the Code of Federal Regulations, chapter I, to prohibit the impersonation of government, businesses, or their officers. On March 30, 2023, the Commission published an initial notice of informal hearing, 88 FR 19024, and on May 4, 2023, Chief Administrative Law Judge Michael Chappell presided over the informal hearing, which was viewable live to the public from the Commission's website, <E T="03">https://www.ftc.gov.</E> Based upon the comments submitted regarding the proposed provision imposing means and instrumentalities liability, <SU>1</SU> <FTREF/> the Commission decided that this provision warranted further analysis and consideration, and stated that it would continue to consider the issue, including soliciting additional comment. <FTNT> <SU>1</SU>   <E T="03">See</E> SNPRM, 89 FR 15072 (Mar. 1, 2024), <E T="03">https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2024/03/01/2024-03793/trade-regulation-rule-on-impersonation-of-government-and-businesses.</E> </FTNT> On March 1, 2024, the Commission published its final Rule in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> <E T="03">,</E> 89 FR 15017. In that same issue of the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> , the Commission also published the SNPRM, 89 FR 15072, requesting additional public comment on whether the Commission should revise the title of the Rule, add a prohibition on the impersonation of individuals, and extend liability for violations of the Rule to parties who provide goods and services with knowledge or reason to know that those goods or services will be used in impersonation schemes that violate the Rule. In accordance with section 18(b)(1) of the FTC Act, 15 U.S.C. 57a(b)(1), which requires the Commission to provide the opportunity for an informal hearing in section 18 rulemaking proceedings, the SNPRM also announced the opportunity for interested persons to present their positions orally at an informal hearing. Six of the commenters requested the opportunity to present their position orally or participate at an informal hearing. Three additional commenters requested the opportunity to participate in a hearing if one were held but did not request a hearing themselves. After further consideration, the Commission has decided not to proceed with the SNPRM's proposed means and instrumentalities provision (proposed § 461.5) at this time. Therefore, the purpose of the informal hearing will be to address issues relating to the proposed prohibition on impersonating individuals (proposed § 461.4). <HD SOURCE="HD1">II. The Requests for an Informal Hearing; Presentation of Oral Submissions</HD> Section 18 of the FTC Act, 15 U.S.C. 57a, as implemented by the Commission's Rules of Practice, 16 CFR 1.11(e), provides interested persons with the opportunity to present their positions orally at an informal hearing upon request. <SU>2</SU> <FTREF/> To make such a request, a commenter must submit, no later than the close of the comment period for the SNPRM, (1) a request to make an oral submission, if desired; (2) a statement identifying the interested person's interests in the proceeding; and (3) any proposal to add disputed issues of material fact to be addressed at the hearing. <SU>3</SU> <FTREF/> <FTNT> <SU>2</SU>  16 CFR 1.11(e). </FTNT> <FTNT> <SU>3</SU>  16 CFR 1.11(e)(1) through (3). </FTNT> The following six commenters requested an informal hearing generally in accordance with the requirements of 16 CFR 1.11(e): 1. The Abundance Institute;  <SU>4</SU> <FTREF/> <FTNT> <SU>4</SU>  The Abundance Institute describes itself as “a mission-driven non-profit dedicated to creating the policy and cultural environment where emerging technologies can develop and thrive in order to perpetually expand widespread human prosperity.” Abundance Institute Cmt. at 1. </FTNT> 2. Andreesen Horowitz (a16z);  <SU>5</SU> <FTREF/> <FTNT> <SU>5</SU>  Andreesen Horowitz of a16z states that a16z is the “world's largest venture capital firm” and a “leading investor” in generative artificial intelligence (“AI”) “with a wide-ranging portfolio of companies” and the belief that AI “should be able to do a better job than unaided human intelligence in solving the complex challenges facing humanity, thereby creating a better world.” a16z Cmt. at 1-2. </FTNT> 3. The Consumer Technology Association (CTA);  <SU>6</SU> <FTREF/> <FTNT> <SU>6</SU>  CTA states that it is the largest technology trade association in North America, whose members range from startups to established brands. CTA Cmt. at 1. </FTNT> 4. Software & Information Industry Association (SIIA);  <SU>7</SU> <FTREF/> <FTNT> <SU>7</SU>  SIIA states that it is a trade organization made up of companies engaged in the information economy, “including digital content providers and users in academic publishing, education technology companies, software developers, cloud service providers, financial information firms, and companies that host platforms used by billions of people worldwide.” SIIA Cmt. at 1. </FTNT> 5. TechFreedom;   TechFreedom states that it is a “nonprofit, nonpartisan think tank . . . dedicated to promoting technological progress that improves the human condition.” TechFreedom Cmt. at 1. </FTNT> 6. TechNet. <SU>9</SU> <FTREF/> <FTNT> <SU>9</SU>  TechNet describes itself as “the national, bipartisan network of technology CEOs and senior executives that promotes the growth of the innovation economy by advocating a targeted policy agenda at the federal and 50-state level.” TechNet Cmt. at 1. </FTNT> In addition, while the following commenters stated that an informal hearing was not necessary, they requested the opportunity to make an oral presentation if the Commission holds an informal hearing at others' request: 1. Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC), et al.;  <SU>10</SU> <FTREF/> <FTNT> <SU>10</SU>  This comment was “submitted by the following consumer and privacy advocacy organizations: Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC), National Consumer Law Center on behalf of its low-income clients, Consumer Federation of America, National Consumers League, Consumer Action, and National Association of Consumer Advocates.” EPIC, et al. Cmt. at 2. </FTNT> 2. The Internet & Television Association (NCTA);   NCTA states that it is “the principal trade association for the U.S. cable industry, representing cable operators serving nearly 90% of the nation's cable television households and cable program networks.” NCTA Cmt. at 1. </FTNT> 3. Truth in Advertising (TINA ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 27k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━