FTC in Three: September 24, 2012

Jon Leibowitz, FTC Chairman

  1. What is the most significant impact on healthcare merger investigations you expect from recent changes to FTC rules? Looking for comments on changes to Part 2 that are intended to streamline the process.
  2. How does the FTC plan to work more closely with small companies and startups on issues like privacy?
  3. How can the government enforce the ban on robo calls to cell phone numbers by politicians?
  4. (Bonus Question) Have you made any progress in shutting down "Rachel" and her crowd with their incessant calls about lowering credit-card interest rates?

Read a transcript of this Q&A

Upcoming

October 15, 2012

Topic: Fair Credit Reporting Act
Division of Privacy and Identity Protection Staff


Submit questions via:

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What is FTC in Three?

How and when do I ask questions?

FTC staff will start seeking questions online on a Monday for three days, film the answers on Thursday or Friday, and then post the video by Friday afternoon. We feel this is sufficient time each week to promote questions, answer them with staff, film it, and post answers.

Generally, we will not host FTC in Three during weeks with a holiday on a Friday or Monday, due to the shortened work week.

Twitter
Stay up to date on featured staff/topics by following the @FTC on Twitter.

Ask questions using the hashtag: #FTC3.

Facebook
Each Monday, we'll post an introductory comment thread inviting questions on our Facebook page. You must post your comments in the specific thread to participate! We'll keep the featured comment pinned to the top as much as possible.

Do I need to know how to use social media to participate?

We prefer to take questions via our Twitter page and Facebook, but if you're not active on either site, and you still want a chance to have your question asked, please send an email to: socialmedia(at)ftc(dot)gov with the subject line: FTC in Three.

Who decides which questions to answer?

Ultimately, it's up to the featured participant to pick which questions to answer.

Why only three questions? Can you do more? What about the questions we don't get answered?

We wanted this to be a short and sweet weekly project, and didn't want to film anything elaborate each week to keep it timely. We may adjust the number of questions as the project unfolds, in the meantime, we welcome the idea of "bonus questions" if staff wants to answer more. Keep in mind, FTC will still do its best to answer incoming questions, they just won't be featured on the video answer.

How long are the video responses?

Ideally, we would like to keep them to 90 seconds and shorter.

Is there a public calendar of participants?

We'll give you a sneak peak on this page each Friday afternoon of who/what will be featured for the next segment, but we won't start seeking comments until Mondays. You'll have to stay tuned each week to find out who's participating!

Do you keep a record of who asks questions & what happens if you answer mine?

We'll let you know on Twitter and Facebook each week which questions we select. We'll feature them for a few days on this webpage, but will redact names and Twitter handles in the official transcript, which is considered an official agency record.

For more information about how the FTC may use your information on its social networking sites, please see our Privacy Impact Assessments for Facebook and Twitter.

Can a person or topic be featured more than once?

Absolutely! Although it may not be right away, but if there's a popular topic/person, we'll get them featured again as soon as possible.

But I still have questions…

If you have questions or concerns, please send an email to: socialmedia(at)ftc(dot)gov with the subject line: FTC in Three.


Last Modified: Monday, October 15, 2012