Please join us at the Willard Hotel in Washington, DC on December 16th for a conference launching the year-long project, “FTC: Technology and Reform.” With complex technological issues increasingly on the FTC’s docket, we will consider what it means that the FTC is fast becoming the Federal Technology Commission.
The FTC: Technology & Reform Project brings together a unique collection of experts on the law, economics, and technology of competition and consumer protection to consider challenges facing the FTC in general, and especially regarding its regulation of technology.
For many, new technologies represent “challenges” to the agency, a continuous stream of complex threats to consumers that can be mitigated only by ongoing regulatory vigilance. We view technology differently, as an overwhelmingly positive force for consumers. To us, the FTC’s role is to promote the consumer benefits of new technology — not to “tame the beast” but to intervene only with caution, when the likely consumer benefits of regulation outweigh the risk of regulatory error. This conference is the start of a year-long project that will recommend concrete reforms to ensure that the FTC’s treatment of technology works to make consumers better off.
Convened by TechFreedom and the International Center for Law & Economics, the FTC Technology & Reform Project includes academics, practitioners, policy experts and several former FTC Commissioners and staffers. Our initial report, to be released around the December 16th event, will identify critical questions facing the agency, Congres, and the courts about the FTC’s future and will propose a framework for addressing them.
FTC Commissioner Joshua Wright will kick off the half-day conference with a luncheon keynote. Following his remarks, Project members will discus principal aspects of our initial report. The event will conclude with a networking reception. Attendees will include a wide variety of practitioners and scholars with expertise working at the Commission or counseling businesses about it.
When:
Monday, December 16, 2013
11:30 – Registration opens
12:00 – 5:30 pm – Luncheon keynote & conference
5:30 – 6:30 p.m. – Reception
Where:
The Willard Hotel
1401 Pennsylvania Ave NW
Washington, DC 20004
Questions?
Email contact@techfreedom.org.
