Federal Trade Commission (FTC) Regulations

Telemarketing and Consumer Fraud and Abuse Prevention Act (TSR)

This federal act, also know as the Telemarketing Sales Rule or TSR, established rules in 1994 to prohibit certain deceptive telemarketing activities, and it regulates sales and fund-raising calls to consumers, as well as consumer calls in response to solicitation by mail. The TSR also prohibits activities commonly known as SUGing and FRUGing. SUGing is the practice of selling under the guise of research, while FRUGing is fund-raising under the guise of research. Selling, in any form, is differentiated from survey research, and the FTC recognizes that in the TSR. Occasionally, survey research companies will offer an incentive or gift to the respondent in appreciation of his or her cooperation. Such an incentive or gift could be a cash donation to a charity, a product sample, or a nominal monetary award. But sales or solicitation is not acceptable or permitted in legitimate and professionally conducted survey research and violates federal law.

Telemarketers have various restrictions in the TSR but perhaps the best-known provisions relate to the National Do Not Call Registry. To enforce the law, the TSR allows consumers to bring private civil lawsuits in federal district courts.

Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA)

The federal COPPA, signed into law in 2000, applies to the online collection of personal information from children under the age of 13. The primary goal is to place parents in control over what information is collected from their children online. The rules spell out what a Web site operator must include in a privacy policy, when and how to seek verifiable consent from a parent, and what responsibilities an operator has to protect children's privacy and safety online. The rules cannot be sidestepped by simply including a disclaimer, making the collection of PII optional, or surreptitiously inviting children to falsify their age.

COPPA applies to operators of commercial Web sites or online services directed to children under the age of 13 that collect personal information from children, operators of general audience sites that knowingly collect personal information from children under 13 years of age, and operators of general audience sites that have a separate children's area and that collect personal information from children under 13 years of age.

PII under COPPA includes full name; physical address; email address; Social Security number; phone number; screen name revealing an email address; persistent identifier, such as a number held in cookie, which is combined with personal information; and information tied to personal information, such as age, gender, hobbies, or preferences.

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