[House Hearing, 112 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]

H.R. --------, A BILL TO RENEW THE FEDERAL TRADE COMMISSION'S AUTHORITY
TO COMBAT CROSS-BORDER SPAM, SPYWARE, AND FRAUD THROUGH REAUTHORIZATION
OF THE U.S. SAFE WEB ACT OF 2006

=======================================================================

HEARING

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON COMMERCE, MANUFACTURING, AND TRADE

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND COMMERCE
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED TWELFTH CONGRESS

SECOND SESSION

__________

JULY 12, 2012

__________

Serial No. 112-164

Printed for the use of the Committee on Energy and Commerce

energycommerce.house.gov

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COMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND COMMERCE

FRED UPTON, Michigan
Chairman

JOE BARTON, Texas HENRY A. WAXMAN, California
Chairman Emeritus Ranking Member
CLIFF STEARNS, Florida JOHN D. DINGELL, Michigan
ED WHITFIELD, Kentucky Chairman Emeritus
JOHN SHIMKUS, Illinois EDWARD J. MARKEY, Massachusetts
JOSEPH R. PITTS, Pennsylvania EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York
MARY BONO MACK, California FRANK PALLONE, Jr., New Jersey
GREG WALDEN, Oregon BOBBY L. RUSH, Illinois
LEE TERRY, Nebraska ANNA G. ESHOO, California
MIKE ROGERS, Michigan ELIOT L. ENGEL, New York
SUE WILKINS MYRICK, North Carolina GENE GREEN, Texas
Vice Chairman DIANA DeGETTE, Colorado
JOHN SULLIVAN, Oklahoma LOIS CAPPS, California
TIM MURPHY, Pennsylvania MICHAEL F. DOYLE, Pennsylvania
MICHAEL C. BURGESS, Texas JANICE D. SCHAKOWSKY, Illinois
MARSHA BLACKBURN, Tennessee CHARLES A. GONZALEZ, Texas
BRIAN P. BILBRAY, California TAMMY BALDWIN, Wisconsin
CHARLES F. BASS, New Hampshire MIKE ROSS, Arkansas
PHIL GINGREY, Georgia JIM MATHESON, Utah
STEVE SCALISE, Louisiana G.K. BUTTERFIELD, North Carolina
ROBERT E. LATTA, Ohio JOHN BARROW, Georgia
CATHY McMORRIS RODGERS, Washington DORIS O. MATSUI, California
GREGG HARPER, Mississippi DONNA M. CHRISTENSEN, Virgin
LEONARD LANCE, New Jersey Islands
BILL CASSIDY, Louisiana KATHY CASTOR, Florida
BRETT GUTHRIE, Kentucky JOHN P. SARBANES, Maryland
PETE OLSON, Texas
DAVID B. McKINLEY, West Virginia
CORY GARDNER, Colorado
MIKE POMPEO, Kansas
ADAM KINZINGER, Illinois
H. MORGAN GRIFFITH, Virginia

7_____

Subcommittee on Commerce, Manufacturing, and Trade

MARY BONO MACK, California
Chairman
MARSHA BLACKBURN, Tennessee G.K. BUTTERFIELD, North Carolina
Vice Chairman Ranking Member
CLIFF STEARNS, Florida CHARLES A. GONZALEZ, Texas
CHARLES F. BASS, New Hampshire JIM MATHESON, Utah
GREGG HARPER, Mississippi JOHN D. DINGELL, Michigan
LEONARD LANCE, New Jersey EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York
BILL CASSIDY, Louisiana BOBBY L. RUSH, Illinois
BRETT GUTHRIE, Kentucky JANICE D. SCHAKOWSKY, Illinois
PETE OLSON, Texas JOHN P. SARBANES, Maryland
DAVID B. McKINLEY, West Virginia HENRY A. WAXMAN, California (ex
MIKE POMPEO, Kansas officio)
ADAM KINZINGER, Illinois
JOE BARTON, Texas
FRED UPTON, Michigan (ex officio)

(ii)

C O N T E N T S

----------
Page
Hon. Mary Bono Mack, a Representative in Congress from the State
of California, opening statement............................... 1
Prepared statement........................................... 4
Hon. G.K. Butterfield, a Representative in Congress from the
State of North Carolina, opening statement..................... 8
Hon. Henry A. Waxman, a Representative in Congress from the State
of California, prepared statement.............................. 41
Hon. Edolphus Towns, a Representative in Congress from the State
of New York, prepared statement................................ 43

Witnesses

Hugh G. Stevenson, Deputy Director for International Consumer
Protection, Federal Trade Commission........................... 9
Prepared statement........................................... 11

Submitted Material

Discussion Draft of H.R. --------, A Bill To extend the
Undertaking Spam, Spyware, And Fraud Enforcement With Enforcers
beyond Borders Act of 2006, and for other purposes, dated July
3, 2012, submitted by Mrs. Bono Mack........................... 6

H.R. --------, A BILL TO RENEW THE FEDERAL TRADE COMMISSION'S AUTHORITY
TO COMBAT CROSS-BORDER SPAM, SPYWARE, AND FRAUD THROUGH REAUTHORIZATION
OF THE U.S. SAFE WEB ACT OF 2006

----------

THURSDAY, JULY 12, 2012

House of Representatives,
Subcommittee on Commerce, Manufacturing, and Trade,
Committee on Energy and Commerce,
Washington, DC.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 10:00 a.m., in
room 2322 of the Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Mary Bono
Mack (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.
Members present: Representatives Bono Mack, Harper, Lance,
Cassidy, Guthrie, Butterfield, and Gonzalez.
Staff present: Paige Anderson, Commerce, Manufacturing, and
Trade Coordinator; Kirby Howard, Legislative Clerk; Brian
McCullough, Senior Professional Staff Member, Commerce,
Manufacturing, and Trade; Gib Mullan, Chief Counsel, Commerce,
Manufacturing, and Trade; Andrew Powaleny, Deputy Press
Secretary; Shannon Weinberg Taylor, Counsel, Commerce,
Manufacturing, and Trade; Michelle Ash, Democratic Chief
Counsel, Commerce, Manufacturing, and Trade; Felipe Mendoza,
Democratic Senior Counsel; and Will Wallace, Democratic Policy
Analyst.

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. MARY BONO MACK, A REPRESENTATIVE IN
CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA

Mrs. Bono Mack. We will now come to order.
Good morning, everybody. The purpose of today's hearing is
to provide subcommittee members with an opportunity to review
and discuss the U.S. SAFE WEB Act of 2006. And the chair now
recognizes herself for an opening statement.
When it comes to the future of electronic commerce,
consumer trust and online privacy are certainly ``trending
topics.'' Even though it serves billions of users worldwide--
with e-commerce in the United States topping $200 billion last
year for the first time and up 15 percent so far this year--the
Internet very much remains a work in progress. Still, in just
over 25 years, the Internet already has spurred transformative
innovations. It has incalculable value. It has become part of
our daily lives. And it has unlimited potential to affect
positive social and political change. But do Americans really
believe enough is being done today to protect them from online
fraud?
Frankly, I am concerned that e-commerce will cease to grow
and flourish if consumers lose faith in their ability to be
protected from online predators, jeopardizing future innovation
as well as our Nation's fragile economic recovery.
One important tool in combating cross-border fraud, spam,
and spyware is the U.S. SAFE WEB Act of 2006, which is set to
expire next year. Today we will be considering legislation
which I plan to introduce this week to reauthorize this
important crime-fighting and consumer protection law for
another 7 years.
Clearly, there is a lot at stake. About a decade ago, the
FTC began to highlight the growing problems it encountered in
effectively combating Internet scams and fraud directed at
American citizens by foreign operators, oftentimes involving
organized crime rings. By 2005, an estimated 20 percent of
consumer complaints the FTC received involved fraud originating
outside of the U.S. According to an analysis of those
complaints from the Consumer Sentinel Network, Americans
suffered annual losses to foreign operators totaling nearly
$220 million.
The FTC subsequently identified severe limitations in its
authority to combat cross-border fraud, spam, and spyware
relative to that of other U.S. regulators. The biggest
roadblock to protecting consumers was the Commission's lack of
authority to share information with foreign law enforcement
agencies.
In order to expand its ability to effectively fight online
fraud, the FTC sent Congress legislative recommendations in
2005 seeking additional authorities. Without objection,
Congress passed the U.S. SAFE WEB Act on December 6 of 2006,
and it was then signed into law by President Bush on December
22 of 2006. Pursuant to the Act, the FTC issued a report in
2009, ``The U.S. SAFE WEB Act: The First Three Years,''
detailing its use and day-to-day experience with the authority
granted by the law.
Over a 3-year period, covering 2006 through 2008, the FTC
received more than a quarter of a million cross-border
complaints by American consumers. The FTC also reported that it
shared confidential information in response to 38 requests from
14 foreign agencies in six countries, resulting in numerous
enforcement proceedings.
By any measure, the U.S. SAFE WEB Act has been a clear
success to date and should be reauthorized before its
expiration next year. Let me emphasize a very important point:
Our goal is to pass a clean reauthorization of the law, and my
draft legislation does exactly that.
The U.S. SAFE WEB Act amends the FTC Act, authorizing the
Commission to share information involving cross-border fraud
with foreign consumer protection agencies, subject to important
safeguards; protect from public disclosure confidential
information received from foreign consumer protection agencies
that otherwise would not be shared; pursue a broader class of
frauds, involving international activity that harms U.S.
consumers; seek redress on behalf of foreign as well as U.S.
consumers victimized by U.S.-based wrongdoers; and finally,
make criminal referrals for cross-border criminal activity when
violations of FTC law also violate U.S. criminal law. This is
necessary because some foreign agencies address consumer fraud
as a criminal--rather than civil--law enforcement issue.
Today, with nearly 1.5 billion credit cards now in use in
the United States, nearly everyone in America has a stake in
making certain that the FTC has the powers it needs to combat
cross-border fraud, spam, and spyware.
In closing, let me emphasize, this is a very important
bill, and I am asking for your favorable consideration as we
begin the process of reauthorizing the U.S. SAFE WEB Act. It is
good for American consumers, it is good for the future of e-
commerce, and it is the right thing to do.
And with that, I would like to now recognize the ranking
member of our subcommittee and my friend, Mr. Butterfield of
North Carolina, for his opening statement.
[The prepared statement of Mrs. Bono Mack and the proposed
legislation follow:]

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OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. G.K. BUTTERFIELD, A REPRESENTATIVE IN
CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF NORTH CAROLINA

Mr. Butterfield. Madam Chairman, I thank you for holding
today's hearing on reauthorizing the U.S. SAFE WEB Act of 2006.
When the Act passed in the 109th Congress, it was
overwhelmingly supported by both Republicans and Democrats, and
it passed the House under suspension of the rules. The law
provides the FTC with expanded and enhanced authorities with
the aim to combat cross-border spyware and spam attacks against
the United States, as well as to help protect consumers against
phony Internet rip-offs and telemarketing scams. The enhanced
authority has empowered the FTC to better protect American
consumers through robust cross-border information sharing,
investigative assistance and correlation-building with foreign
consumer protection agencies.
In a 2009 report to Congress, the FTC noted that ``the Act
has helped overcome cross-border enforcement challenges it
faced in the past, and it is critical to the FTC's ability to
combat global scams that consumers will face in the future.''
Simply put, the expanded authorities are working to protect the
American people.
The SAFE WEB Act included a sunset provision that will
cause these enhanced authorities to expire in December of 2013
if Congress does not act. The proposed bill we are discussing
today will, if passed, extend the law to September 2020. While
I support these important consumer protection provisions being
extended, I join the current commissioners of both political
parties in calling for this reauthorization to be continued in
perpetuity.
I hope that my colleagues will agree that this law is
paying dividends to the American people. Instead of including
another sunset provision in any reauthorization, we should
strongly weigh the unanimous support of the commissioners to
make it permanent.
I look forward to hearing from today's witness from the
Commission, Mr. Stevenson, and appreciate him being here today.
Madam Chairman, I look forward to working with you and our
colleagues on the subcommittee in fully authorizing this very
important and successful law. Thank you.
Mrs. Bono Mack. Thank you, Mr. Butterfield.
And seeing no other members who wish to make opening
statements, we will turn our attention to our one witness that
is joining us today. We have Hugh G. Stevenson, Deputy Director
for International Consumer Protection at the Office of
International Affairs at the Federal Trade Commission. Thank
you very much for being here. Mr. Stevenson has prepared an
opening statement that will be placed into the record. He will
now have 5 minutes to summarize his statement in his remarks.
Again, thank you for coming. If you can just look at the
little clock in front of you--it is a timekeeper, kind of
typical American values--green means goes, yellow means start
wrapping it up or hit the gas, and red means try to come to a
conclusion. Please just remember to turn your microphone on and
bring it close to your mouth so that the TV audience at home
can hear you.
And with that, Mr. Stevenson, you are recognized for your 5
minutes.

STATEMENT OF HUGH G. STEVENSON, DEPUTY DIRECTOR FOR
INTERNATIONAL CONSUMER PROTECTION, FEDERAL TRADE COMMISSION

Mr. Stevenson. Thank you very much. Chairman Bono Mack,
Ranking Member Butterfield, honorable members of this
committee, my name is Hugh Stevenson. I am the deputy director
for International Consumer Protection at the Federal Trade
Commission, and I am here on behalf of the FTC to speak in
support of renewing the U.S. SAFE WEB Act.
As you know, part of our bread and butter is bringing
enforcement actions to protect U.S. consumers from fraud, from
deception, from other commercial misconduct. And more and more,
these enforcement actions cross borders. The defendants can be
in other countries, the money can go to other countries, the
evidence can sometimes only be found in other countries. The
SAFE WEB Act of 2006 has provided us with key enforcement tools
we need more and more to do this bread-and-butter work. And as
you have recognized, unless you take action, we lose the Act's
powers next year.
Now, what does this problem--cross-border fraud--look like?
If we look at our joint database and consumer sentinel, we see
hundreds of thousands of cross-border complaints from your
constituents. We see millions of robocalls sent from outside
the United States. We have seen millions of bogus debt-
collection calls. In our cross-border cases, we have seen
hundreds of millions of dollars in injury to U.S. consumers.
And in our spam work, in one case alone, we have seen billions
of spam messages sent.
Technology with a global reach has become even more
prevalent, even more the new normal since 2006. The new
technologies--and not just the web and email but increasingly
also mobile devices--Smartphones, new methods of payment,
voiceover IP, robocalls--all this means the frauds are faster,
the frauds can reach farther, and the frauds are harder to
discover.
What does the SAFE WEB Act do to help us here? It helps us
to work together with agencies in other countries to
investigate and bring cases using our subpoena power to get
information, share it, get more information back. Easy example:
We subpoenaed information from a U.S. company and shared it
with the Toronto Police Service, which was investigating a scam
that was targeting both U.S. and Canadian consumers, helped
link the suspects to the scam, led to 14 arrests. Another
simple example, payday lender case: We shared information with
a U.K. agency, they shared information with us, we filed an
action in court and obtained a million-dollar settlement with
U.S. and U.K. defendants. The SAFE WEB Act also confirms that
we have jurisdiction to pursue these cases and helps us build
networks so necessary with our fellow enforcers.
Let me emphasize also what the SAFE WEB Act does not do.
The Act does not set new substantive rules for business. It
hasn't given us any new substantive rulemaking powers. What it
does is provide us with enforcement tools.
The Act also does not cover every conceivable case. It
limits cooperation to cases of fraud, deception, and other
misconduct that is substantially similar to practices that
already violate the FTC's consumer laws.
The FTC has referred many times in many contexts over many
years to the need for just this kind of legislation, and we
need the SAFE WEB Act now more than ever to meet the challenge
of effective protection for U.S. consumers.
Thank you for your attention and I would be glad to answer
any questions.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Stevenson follows:]

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Mrs. Bono Mack. Mr. Stevenson, I think that is a world
record. Good job. So I will recognize myself for 5 minutes for
questioning. And again, thank you for your testimony.
Can you just give us sort of a worst-case scenario of what
exactly happens or could happen if you lose this authority that
you are granted under this U.S. SAFE WEB Act?
Mr. Stevenson. Well, first and foremost, we would lose the
enforcement tools of investigation and information sharing that
we use now increasingly, frequently, to work with these other
agencies. That means we would be less effective in a number of
these cases. It would take more time to do these cases or, in
some cases, we just couldn't bring the cases at all. We also
wouldn't be in the position we are now to assist agencies in
other countries that often are acting on investigations--take
the Toronto example I mentioned--to protect U.S. consumers. And
so we lose that benefit as well.
Mrs. Bono Mack. Can you talk a little bit about what the
consumer might see rather than in the halls of the FTC? What do
you think will happen? What would the consumer see, perhaps, if
you cease to have these opportunities under this Act?
Mr. Stevenson. Well, the consumer is going to have more and
more of these kinds of challenges as we see it. Just by
carrying around our Smartphone, you know, we can be spammed and
spimmed and spear phished and robocalled and just ripped off,
and that is from anywhere in the world. And so the challenge
is, what can we do and step in to deal with these problems?
There are some things that we can try to continue to do as we
did before the Act, but we are simply not in the position to be
as effective as we are now.
Mrs. Bono Mack. How did you pursue these things before the
Act?
Mr. Stevenson. Well, we could share limited forms of
information, consumer complaint information, for example, under
our statute. We could bring our own actions and coordinate as
well as we might with agencies in other countries. But we
weren't in the position, really--which is so critical--of being
able to share information, particularly as the investigation
goes on. Sometimes we don't even know where the fraud is
located when we start the investigation. Neither do some of our
counterparts. So some of it is just that challenge of even
finding the people we want to go after.
Mrs. Bono Mack. Was the FTC ever denied from bringing cases
prior to SAFE WEB?
Mr. Stevenson. There are certainly cases that I think it is
fair to say would have been very difficult if not impossible to
investigate for that kind of reason. When we would come to the
border in terms of information, if the evidence is somewhere
else--for example, the domain name registrar information about
who is behind a Web site was somewhere else and we didn't have
a way to get at it without using these powers, or maybe an
agency that was working with us didn't have the ability to get
at it because we were able to assist them--that kind of thing
could shut down investigations. It is a matter of degree of how
fast and how well we can bring these cases in terms of
developing the evidence, but fast is important here because
fraud is even faster.
Mrs. Bono Mack. Thank you. And turning to something that we
all care deeply about in this town, and that is the amount of
money it costs. CBO originally scored U.S. SAFE WEB at $9
million over 5 years from 2006 through 2011. Do you believe
that that score was accurate, and if not, do you know how much
the activities pursued under the U.S. SAFE WEB authority have
cost?
Mr. Stevenson. Well, it is difficult to provide an exact
estimate since these authorities are all intertwined with the
FTC Act. And indeed, a lot of these tools are part and parcel
of this sort of ongoing enforcement activity. Since we don't do
our budget items by statute, it is hard to parcel all of that
out.
Having said that, I would also add there was no specific
appropriation for SAFE WEB when it was enacted and we did the
implementation work, for example, in the beginning without an
additional--beyond our regular appropriation.
In terms of the $9 million figure, while there are various
ways in which, depending on exactly what one counts in
calculating this, we think under any reasonable calculation it
would be significantly less than 9 million. Probably less than
half that would be the cost attributable to this. The fact is a
lot of it is just that we were able to do the same work but
better, and we were able also--and bearing in mind not only the
costs here but the benefits--to stop more frauds involving tens
of millions of dollars, even recover money in some cases that
we may not have recovered otherwise.
Mrs. Bono Mack. Thank you. Doing the same work but better,
would you say your office has grown larger or small since the
passage of the SAFE WEB Act?
Mr. Stevenson. The Office of International Affairs has, I
think, grown a little larger. But looking at it from the point
of view of the FTC, as I said, the work was generally done
within the appropriation envelop that we had when we were doing
the first implementation. The other thing I might mention is
that some of the costs that we have here such as doing the
report, such as writing the internal procedural rules to
implement this, would not be necessary to repeat as we go
forward.
Mrs. Bono Mack. Thank you very much.
I am going to recognize Mr. Butterfield for 5 minutes.
Mr. Butterfield. Thank you, Madam Chairman.
In your testimony, Mr. Stevenson, you mentioned spammed,
spimmed, and spear phish. I know what spam means but I don't
know the other two. Would you elaborate on those two?
Mr. Stevenson. Well, I think spim is sort of like the spam
equivalent but in terms of messaging on phones. Phishing
spelled with a ``ph'' is the idea that you might get the
message from Wells Fargo Bank saying we have a problem with
your account, please sign in here with your account details,
when in fact it is somebody else trying to----
Mr. Butterfield. Um-hum.
Mr. Stevenson [continuing]. Steal those. And spear phishing
is using some particular information that they may know about
you to make the phishing even more effective.
Mr. Butterfield. All right. I have learned something. All
right. You also indicate that the full commission--I believe
there are five of you on the Commission, Democrats and
Republicans--that the five of you have twice called on Congress
to completely repeal the sunset provision. Are you reflecting a
sentiment that is part of the record or are these the informal
feelings of the commissioners?
Mr. Stevenson. The Commission in its 3-year report to
Congress did request the repeal of the sunset provision.
Mr. Butterfield. And that opinion is unanimous among your
colleagues?
Mr. Stevenson. Yes, as I understand.
Mr. Butterfield. All right. Can you please discuss with us
some of the disadvantages to renewing these authorities for
only 7 years, some of the disadvantages?
Mr. Stevenson. Well, one issue that arises is that as the
time comes for the provisions to expire that obviously
investigations can take months, cases can take years, and as we
get closer to the end of the time available to us, then the
time left on the statute, so to speak, is less than the time
that we need to pursue those cases. It also does affect, of
course, the end of the sunset period and the potential
willingness of others to cooperate with us. Underlying a lot of
this is developing this kind of cultural reciprocity of going
back and forth, and obviously we want to be in the position as
strongly as we can to assure our partners that indeed we will
be in the position to reciprocate just as we expect that they
will be.
Mr. Butterfield. And the opposite of that, can you think of
any benefits to sunsetting at 7 years?
Mr. Stevenson. Well, the process of oversight--obviously, I
defer to you on the possible benefits of oversight. I would
emphasize here that the type of law that we are dealing with
here involves not the kind of substantive rules but more of the
enforcement tools that the need for which we don't expect to be
going away any time soon.
Mr. Butterfield. And finally, can you please discuss with
us why it is important to reauthorize the Act now and not wait
until sometime closer to December 2013? In particular, can you
please address how delaying this reauthorization might affect
your international investigative and enforcement efforts?
Mr. Stevenson. Well, mostly for the reasons that I
mentioned. In terms of particular investigations in cases, as
we get closer to the time that it expires, the time for which
we exercise these powers may run out before the investigation
is completed, for example. So that is one kind of concern. We
do have the power also under the Act to negotiate formal
agreements where those are necessary according to the opposite
side's law, which they aren't always required. But we have been
negotiating some of those. It is difficult to pursue
negotiations of that sort as we get very close to the end of a
sunset period, and so that is why we are requesting a prompt
renewal.
Mr. Butterfield. Can you please discuss what kinds of
complaints by and frauds against the U.S. consumer you are
seeing originating in other countries?
Mr. Stevenson. We see all manner of frauds. As I say, the
technology these days means the communications can come from
anywhere and the money can go anywhere, so we see pretty much
the full range of frauds and deceptions. I would say that they
tend to be the particularly egregious ones that we have seen or
certainly that we have acted on when we are dealing with the
cross-border----
Mr. Butterfield. But Canada is in the number one position,
are they not?
Mr. Stevenson. Canada has been historically where we have
seen the most complaints going back to the 1990s where we saw
extensive telemarketing issues. One of the interesting trends
is that more and more though we see other countries involved.
And so in the testimony we gave the example of these bogus debt
collection calls from India and we had two cases there, the
robocall case that used facilities in the Philippines to send
complaints, and we are seeing a larger and larger percentage of
the cross-border fraud complaints by U.S. consumers to involve
these other countries. We also have a range of countries where
we have seen the money go and have tried to----
Mr. Butterfield. The U.K. is an example? Would the U.K. be
an example?
Mr. Stevenson. The U.K. would be one of the----
Mr. Butterfield. Yes.
Mr. Stevenson [continuing]. Countries where we have seen
the numbers. We do about a 100-page report a year from our
Consumer Sentinel Database, which is combined data from the
FTC, the FBI, the U.S. Postal Inspection Service, Better
Business Bureau, various Canadian sources, and we have seen in
that data an increase in frauds from other countries so that
the largest number would be from Canada, for example. But then
the United Kingdom would be after that, Nigeria, Jamaica,
India, Spain, China, Mexico, and Ghana would be the top ones in
terms of complaints. Obviously, the complaint data doesn't give
us a precise calculation of what is happening out there, but it
is certainly indicative of general trends.
Mr. Butterfield. Thank you.
Mrs. Bono Mack. Thank you, Mr. Butterfield.
The chair now recognizes Dr. Cassidy for 5 minutes.
Mr. Cassidy. Good morning, Mr. Stevenson. I am a doctor so
as I was reading your testimony I was struck by some of the
prosecutions or cooperations you have had regarding bogus
medical products sold. So none of this is the challenge. All of
this is for me to learn. We may have a restriction on the sale
of a drug without a medical prescription but Mexico may not. So
if the online pharmacy is originating a drug from Mexico--one,
do you know that that pharmacy is based in Mexico, that online
pharmacy; and two, do you get cooperation not just from Mexico
but from any country for a statute which is U.S.-specific but
doesn't necessarily apply to their methods of dispensing drugs
as one example?
Mr. Stevenson. Well, the powers the SAFE WEB Act give us,
as I mention, are limited in the kinds of cases we can
cooperate on, are ones where the law is substantially similar
to practices that violate our Act. So in the case----
Mr. Cassidy. Now, if Mexico does have a requirement that
for controlled substances there be a physician's prescription
with their version of a DEA number and we have that same and
someone is buying controlled substances from an overseas online
pharmacy, would they cooperate with us on that regard?
Mr. Stevenson. Well, it would require under our statute for
us to cooperate with them that it would be substantially
similar to practices that violate the FTC consumer law. So if
we, the United States, might have such a provision, it wouldn't
give the FTC the power----
Mr. Cassidy. I see. So it would have to be fraudulent. It
couldn't be, ``Here is pure-grade morphine.'' We would require
a prescription--they do--but it is still being sold. It would
have to be adulterated morphine. Yes. So if they were saying
adulterated morphine, billing it as pure grade, you could
prosecute?
Mr. Stevenson. Yes. If it was something that was a fraud,
for example, and the large, large percentage of the cases that
really have implicated SAFE WEB have been hard core fraud and
deception.
Mr. Cassidy. So do you know those Web sites which are
notorious for fraudulent sales? I mean do you have a roster, a
registry of those Web sites? Wow, man, we are getting
adulterated drugs from this particular Web site.
Mr. Stevenson. I think that the drug issues tend to be
addressed more by other agencies, the FDA, for example----
Mr. Cassidy. The only reason I raise that, though, is you
mentioned a couple of--and I don't have your testimony in front
of me open now----
Mr. Stevenson. Right.
Mr. Cassidy [continuing]. But you mentioned a couple of
medical-type stuff, drugs-type stuff that you did prosecute on.
Mr. Stevenson. Yes.
Mr. Cassidy. So what would make those your jurisdiction if
you will as opposed to someone else's, FDA's?
Mr. Stevenson. Right. Well, it is partly what we can cover
with our law. Although the fraud provisions reach broadly, they
wouldn't reach everything. So another would be just in terms of
allocating where the expertise lies for doing certain kinds of
things----
Mr. Cassidy. So you mentioned a----
Mr. Stevenson [continuing]. For example, we are not in a
position to do a medical analysis of drugs or----
Mr. Cassidy. But you mentioned that there was a cancer
agent that was sold that turned out to be nothing but white
powder.
Mr. Stevenson. Yes.
Mr. Cassidy. So did you all prosecute that one or did the
FDA?
Mr. Stevenson. In fact, in that case I think it was
prosecuted by the Department of Justice and the FBI made the
arrest. So that was in that case a criminal one. And that is
actually an important point to emphasize, that we accomplish
things with this law not only by bringing our own cases but
where we can cooperate as appropriate with other authorities--
--
Mr. Cassidy. So let me go back----
Mr. Stevenson [continuing]. That may be more in a----
Mr. Cassidy. I accept that, but I just have limited time--
--
Mr. Stevenson. Sorry.
Mr. Cassidy [continuing]. And I might interrupt. I
apologize. But again, do you have a registry, if you will, of
Web sites that we know these are the bad actors, we are going
to watch them for promoting fraudulent products, and we are
just going to hover over them, if you will? Do you keep such a
list or does it just kind of randomly pop up that, wow,
somebody saw white powder, called it a cancer cure?
Mr. Stevenson. Well, our cases can start in a number of
ways but one major way is from looking at the complaint data
that we get from consumers and from other agencies.
Mr. Cassidy. But I guess my specific question is do you
monitor certain Web sites? You have a certain amount of
complaints; a lot of them come back to a particular Web site.
Does that go on your monitor-this-one-closely list?
Mr. Stevenson. As I say, we look at the complaints; we look
at other factors that may influence whether the case is an
appropriate one to bring. We usually don't lack for potential
targets. There are usually a lot of different fraud targets.
Mr. Cassidy. But somehow you are not answering my
question----
Mr. Stevenson. Sorry.
Mr. Cassidy [continuing]. Asking my question correctly.
Intuitively I know that there are going to be some Web sites
that you are able to identify as being particular bad actors in
terms of purveying fraudulent material. Do they go on a watch-
closely list or is it always generated from your complaints and
it may be this Web site and it may be another next time?
Mr. Stevenson. I would say we do not have a watch-closely
list as in the sense that you are describing. The other thing
about that is that, in terms of Web sites, what we see is often
fraud operators operate multiple fraud Web sites, move around
quite a bit, use the process of registering them to use phony
names and whatnot so that actually that is a chunk. But we do
not have the list that you are asking about.
Mr. Cassidy. May I have one more question? The only thing
in the medical sphere, people are obviously depositing
prescriptions on the Web site and then they are getting
refills. It is not a one-time, you know, buy a bicycle that
whatever, whatever; it is, no, I want refills. So even in those
sorts of pharmaceutical-oriented Web sites, do you find this
constant changeover?
Mr. Stevenson. That, I am sorry, I don't know the answer to
that.
Mr. Cassidy. Thank you for your indulgence, Madam Chair.
Mr. Stevenson. Thank you.
Mrs. Bono Mack. Thank you, Dr. Cassidy.
And good morning, Mr. Gonzalez. You are recognized for 5
minutes.
Mr. Gonzalez. Thank you very much, Madam Chair.
Mr. Stevenson, let me ask you. Democratic staff has
prepared a memo, in essence, telling us what we would be
reauthorizing, whether it is for a limited period of time or no
restriction, but it says it exempts financial institutions,
payment system providers, Internet service providers, telephone
service providers, and domain name registrars, among others,
from liability for voluntarily providing certain information to
the FTC when they might otherwise be prohibited from sharing
such information. Now, that is very important, is it not, that
provision?
Mr. Stevenson. Yes, that is one of the provisions in the
SAFE WEB Act, yes.
Mr. Gonzalez. And the reason is there may not be any
liability, but it definitely might interfere with the business
relationships that some of these providers of this information
have with customers that utilize their services? Would that be
true? Now, they may be bad purpose, bad actors, but they still
have a business relationship. What I am getting at is a very
simple proposition, and that is surely not everyone is happy
with this particular authority that you have. I agree that you
should have the authority. I don't think that we have to sunset
the thing either and I commend the work that you have done. I
just want to get at all of the different stakeholders because I
think we are all in agreement that this is a good authority for
you to have and we need to accommodate you.
The question comes down to surely someone out there in the
business community, in the Internet or in the stakeholders,
business stakeholders have some concerns that they expressed to
you regarding this authority and the exercise of it. So what is
it out there in the business community that we might have some
stakeholders, legitimate ones, that are complaining to you, the
nature of the complaint, and your response?
Mr. Stevenson. Thank you. We have not had any complaints
about this provision since the Act was passed. We did have
concerns raised in the several years leading up to the passage
of the Act about the scope and nature of this provision, and
then accordingly, it was narrowed. You mentioned that this
information can be shared in certain instances. The certain
instances here really are focused on essentially where there is
a third party that has some reason to believe there may be a
fraud or a deception or a violation of our law going on, or
they have reason to believe that they have information about
money that is ours to recover. So it is focused on those
instances where they essentially have some reason to say we
have complaints, we have suspicious charged back rates, or in
some manner they have information to say this is something that
we should notify the authorities about. And the effect of the
provision is really just aimed at the liability or, in this
case, lack of liability for the act of notifying us.
So we have not heard complaints about that since the Act
was passed. It is something that is useful to us. It has not
been as central as the information sharing and investigation,
other provisions that I have already talked about.
Mr. Gonzalez. Now, as much is going out there in the
Internet world, and you just indicated it has revolutionized
just in the past couple of years the use of mobile devices and
how people get information out there, tremendous opportunities
for many good things and tremendous opportunities for many bad
things, as happens. Bottom line, though, is the consumer needs
to be protected and we need to educate the consumer. And the
best thing always--and Dr. Cassidy probably would agree if he
was here--and that is prevention. So what is it that the FTC
does to educate the consumer, to protect them and so they don't
fall victim, so that then you are not there investigating and
pursuing on the civil side and maybe DOJ pursuing things on the
criminal side? What about education?
Mr. Stevenson. We place a very high priority actually on
education, have a number of different campaigns we have done,
including with foreign partners in a number of cases. One
example of an education campaign that I think we launched just
this week if I am not mistaken involves, for example, the
problem of robocalls, which we mentioned earlier. And so we
have done videos to put out for consumers. We have robocall
advice on what to do if you receive them if you are a consumer.
We also have a robocall action plan with several items and
several steps we are trying to take to alert consumers to the
problems that they see.
Another example is in the area of remittances, sending
money back home to another country, and this is an issue that
affects us as Americans, including when we don't speak English.
And so we have actually put that piece of advice in six
different languages to make sure that we are reaching as many
people as we can with the important messages. Some of these
messages about the fraud prevention are not exclusively
international obviously because it has become so much part of
our sort of everyday life and the kind of thing we have to
communicate to consumers.
Mr. Gonzalez. Thank you very much for your testimony.
And I yield back, Madam Chair.
Mrs. Bono Mack. Thank you.
The chair recognizes Mr. Guthrie for 5 minutes.
Mr. Guthrie. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you so much for being here today. I was trying to get
kind of a better feel for the process that the FTC uses to
engage in international cooperation to the SAFE WEB Act. So in
SAFE WEB I believe parts of it are self-executing and there are
other areas that you have to have Memorandums of Understanding
with other countries. Can you walk through that process? What
are the impediments of those Memorandums of Understanding?
Mr. Stevenson. Sure. Well, one of the things that the Act
requires is, before we share information, that the other side
certify that they have the law to keep the information
confidential, that they are investigating laws that are fraud,
deception, or something substantially similar to our statutes.
Mr. Guthrie. Um-hum.
Mr. Stevenson. We have actually developed a sort of form,
the checklist of the factors that we have to take into account.
We have to look at whether their law meets that standard.
Usually, it is fraud and deception as I mentioned and that part
is straightforward. We also need to take into account the
general public interest, the likelihood of reciprocity if we
assist another party, and the amount of injury and the number
of consumers affected. And we have to use our resources wisely
in choosing where to provide that assistance. If we want to go
and get investigative assistance, that needs to go through one
of our commissioners to use that process.
We don't require a formal agreement in the formal sense in
order to do that kind of cooperation, but there are some
countries where their laws may require that.
Mr. Guthrie. OK.
Mr. Stevenson. And in that event, then, we work with the
State Department to develop the text to negotiate--in this case
with the European Commission and Canada where it appeared that
their law would require a more formal arrangement.
Mr. Guthrie. You mentioned other emerging threats like
Jamaica and some other countries that aren't European
Commission or Canada--have the same kind of systems, I guess,
that we have. I mean who are the big emerging threat countries
and what are the impediments between us being able to work with
them or them working with us I guess? I think you mentioned
Jamaica earlier.
Mr. Stevenson. Right. Well, there can be several sort of
issues. In some cases there may not be a clear counterpart
agency for us, and that is why it is important that the
authority enables us to cooperate not just with civil
regulatory agencies but also criminal agencies. So that part is
important to us. And in some cases, obviously, language is a
certain kind of barrier, and others not so much. And the
challenges can differ. And it does take time to develop the
relationships. We want to make sure that we can trust the
agency we are dealing with on the other side; they want to be
able to trust us. So that is also part of the ongoing process.
Mr. Guthrie. Is there like a top two or three countries
that you are most concerned about----
Mr. Stevenson. As I mentioned----
Mr. Guthrie [continuing]. International fraud that we are
not able to really----
Mr. Stevenson. Yes.
Mr. Guthrie [continuing]. Get an agreement with or work
with?
Mr. Stevenson. As I mentioned, the complaint data suggests
that there are certain countries that are where there are a
particularly large number of complaints. I think I mentioned
India, Jamaica among them. The----
Mr. Guthrie. So there are large complaints with them and
they are cooperating with us, or are there large complaints in
those countries and we are really having trouble cooperating
with them?
Mr. Stevenson. Well, we are working in a number of
countries on further improving our relationship. As I say, it
varies depending on also the state of their agency in that
country, the degree to which we have had occasion to work with
them before.
Mr. Guthrie. I guess the question--the worst-offending
countries, are they serious about it and want to get it fixed?
Or this is just something that is not on their agenda?
Mr. Stevenson. Well, sometimes there is a challenge of
making this high enough on the agenda from the point of view of
the agencies in another country, and that is something then we
also try to work on in our enforcement work and technical
assistance work.
Mr. Guthrie. Because location is not important. It is the
web so people can just gravitate, and once you fix it in one
country, it is going to gravitate to another. So I appreciate
the struggle you are in and how difficult it is for what you
are doing. And the anonymity of the web allows people to do
things that we don't want them to do. So I appreciate what you
are doing.
And I yield back.
Mr. Stevenson. Thank you.
Mrs. Bono Mack. Thank you, Mr. Guthrie.
Mr. Harper, you are recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. Harper. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you, Mr. Stevenson, for being here with us today.
Your written testimony indicates that the Act authorizes the
FTC to share confidential information with its foreign
counterparts subject to certain safeguards such as restrictions
on foreign governments' use of information for a purpose other
than the investigation that triggered the information request.
Have you received any complaints of misuse of information?
Mr. Stevenson. Misuse by agencies in other countries?
Mr. Harper. Yes.
Mr. Stevenson. No, I don't believe so.
Mr. Harper. OK. Are you aware of any such misuses of
information whether you have received complaints about that or
not?
Mr. Stevenson. No.
Mr. Harper. OK. Does the FTC have formal agreements with
other nations to address information sharing, and if so, how
many agreements are in place?
Mr. Stevenson. In terms of SAFE WEB Act agreements, we have
no formal agreements. We have, dating from before the SAFE WEB
Act, mostly some informal Memoranda of Understanding. And as I
mentioned, we can cooperate case-by-case if they provide the
required certifications of information. So we do have those
kinds of arrangements.
Mr. Harper. Do the protections for information shared
internationally closely resemble those for sharing with State
attorneys general or are they different?
Mr. Stevenson. They are very similar.
Mr. Harper. OK. Are there any countries where you have
shared information that did not have reciprocal information
sharing agreements with the U.S.?
Mr. Stevenson. Well, as I said, we don't have the formal
agreements. One of the factors that we take into account in
sharing is whether there is the likelihood of reciprocal
assistance, and we do find that--I can't think of an example
where someone has indicated they will not provide that under
any circumstances, and certainly generally they are more than
happy to. And that is part of what we are trying to achieve.
Sometimes they have their own legal restrictions on doing it.
So if they didn't have that ability to share everything back
with us, we take that into account. But there are sometimes
limited things they can do and other things they can't. And we
see the important issue as getting the bad buys.
Mr. Harper. Well, what are the conditions you look for or
establish in order to share information?
Mr. Stevenson. Well, so, first and foremost, they provide
the certification that they can maintain the information in
confidence. They tell us the nature of their legal authority to
do investigations. So we ask them under what authority are you
pursuing a possible violation? So often they will cite to us
their fraud statute, their deception statute, or whatever.
Then, we will look at whether that complies with the statutory
requirement, that it is substantially similar. We also would
look at the general public interest, as I mentioned, the
likelihood of reciprocity, and also whether there is real
injury involved and whether there is a significant number of
people. We don't want to be doing this kind of work for, you
know, one-off disputes obviously or even, you know, small
disputes.
Mr. Harper. You testified earlier that Canada recently
enacted a law similar to our SAFE WEB. Does their law affect
your ability to investigate or litigate fraud originating from
Canada?
Mr. Stevenson. Yes, it does. We have seen that as a very
positive development in testifying in support of the
legislation, they are actually--the government official, the
head, I think, of the FCC pointed to the experience of the SAFE
WEB Act in the United States and the importance of that kind of
reciprocal assistance. It hasn't yet all played out. I don't
believe it is completely in effect, but we are already seeing
the benefits. We have several Canadian agencies--the
Competition Bureau, the CRTC, which is more like the FCC--have
already detailed people to us to work with us under his cases
and that has been very effective.
Mr. Harper. Are you doing anything to encourage other
countries to enact similar laws to what Canada has done?
Mr. Stevenson. We had done work at the OECD on protecting
consumers from cross-border fraud and deception focusing
particularly on those kinds of practices and encouraging a
consensus on the approach to be taken. And a number of the
items in that OECD recommendation are reflected in the SAFE WEB
Act and are indeed reflected in some aspects of European Union
law and now in the Canadian provisions. Different countries
have obviously variations on that theme, which is part of the
challenge here of working it out so that the rails of the two
train tracks fit together when they meet.
Mr. Harper. Thank you, Mr. Stevenson.
I yield back.
Mr. Stevenson. Thank you.
Mrs. Bono Mack. Thank you, Mr. Harper.
Mr. Lance? OK. He waives his questions.
Mr. Lance. That is you, then.
Mrs. Bono Mack. Then, it is me. All right. We are going to
move to a quick second round of questions, and I recognize
myself for 5 minutes.
If a foreign government--kind of continuing on in the same
vein--if they are not interested in cooperating with the FTC,
what can the FTC do about perpetrators in that nation? Do you
ever pursue enforcement in such cases? And does the FTC ever
obtain default judgments against absent foreign defendants?
Mr. Stevenson. Starting with the last one first, we do
sometimes obtain default judgments. We have had cases where we
have done that. There then becomes the challenge obviously of
taking those to enforce them in some other country. We do work
with the office of foreign litigation at the Department of
Justice, which is another provision we haven't had a chance to
talk about in SAFE WEB Act. That does require the development
of case law and the development of other arrangements for us to
hire counsel to pursue the money.
In some occasions, we can get the receiver, who is
appointed in the case by the court, to take some action in
another country by virtue of being the court-appointed trustee,
if you will, to take action. So that is another possibility.
Sometimes there are assets that are reachable in some other
country even if the defendants are in some way not reachable.
Sometimes there are assets in the United States for some
defendants but not others. So there are various of those kinds
of measures that we can take, and it really is a case-by-case
challenge how we handle that.
Mrs. Bono Mack. Thank you.
There have been a handle of U.S.-based large, multinational
companies that have been the target of FTC investigations or
legal action that have also been the subject of investigations,
reviews, or legal actions abroad for the same activities. Has
the FTC shared information gleaned from its legal actions here
that has been used in international legal actions for the same
activities?
Mr. Stevenson. The Act permits us to share information in
our files with agencies in other countries that are doing
investigations. We do take into account various public interest
factors and do take into account whether the laws that they are
investigating are substantially similar. So there might be some
examples where the laws that they may be looking at to pursue,
the other companies may not be substantially similar to the
laws that we have.
Mrs. Bono Mack. Thank you. I think that is very important.
And how would you explain the pattern of complaints against
foreign businesses since the U.S. SAFE WEB Act passed? For a
few years it declined and then just last year, which was 2011,
the number jumped substantially and exceeded the number of 2006
complaints for the first time. Is the number of complaints
rising generally, or are the complaints about foreign companies
increasing disproportionately? And are complaints based on
Internet fraud rising generally, foreign and domestic? That is
a mouthful but----
Mr. Stevenson. Well, in terms of the trends, it is, as I
mentioned, somewhat challenging to really discern the exact
trend versus the data that we have in the system, because it
sometimes comes in--it depends on the sources. Our sources from
the U.S. and Canada are more extensive, obviously, in
contributing to the database, so that has some effect on what
the data looks like. And I think we had seen a higher
percentage of foreign complaints in 2006 than we have in the
last couple of years where it has remained stable and around, I
think, 13 percent.
Having said that, a number of complaints that aren't marked
as cross-border may indeed be cross-border because all we are
reporting is what the consumer knows or thinks they know about
where the problem is. They don't know about those cases where
maybe the money went somewhere else, so they don't know about
those cases where the web host is in another country. They
don't know about a lot of these instances. Or they may think
that the company is in the United States but it is really a
mail drop that then sends it on to some other country. So we
take it as indicative in a larger sense of this being a
substantial part of what is going on, but it is all woven in to
the general fraud challenge of finding the bad guys and their
money.
Mrs. Bono Mack. All right. Thank you.
Lastly, the Act permits the FTC to issue compulsory process
for documents and testimony from a U.S. citizen upon request
for investigative assistance by foreign governments. Has the
FTC ever refused such a request because a foreign government's
request does not meet the legal burden under U.S. law?
Mr. Stevenson. Yes, if I understood the question. We have
certainly been approached by agencies who asked us about help
in cases where their laws were not--or at least the legal
provisions they we're dealing with were not substantially
similar. This might come up, for example, in the context of
European privacy laws which are not, in a number of respects,
substantially similar.
Mrs. Bono Mack. All right. Thank you very much.
Mr. Butterfield, would you like 5 minutes for question?
Mr. Butterfield. Five minutes or less, thank you.
Mrs. Bono Mack. OK. You are recognized.
Mr. Butterfield. All right.
Mr. Stevenson, I am informed that cross-border fraud
complaints remain steady at about 13 percent of all fraud
complaints in '09, '10, and '11. However, as a raw number, both
non-cross-border and cross-border fraud complaints grew in each
of those years. Specifically, in '09 the fraud complaints were
about 700,000. In 2010 that number was about 815,000. In 2011
it was pretty close to a million with nearly one million fraud
complaints in total. Cross-border fraud complaints stood at
about 88,000 in '09, 104,000 in '10, 132,000 in '11. With that
background, the percentage of cross-border fraud complaints
dropped from 2006 to 2007 and then remained steady following
enactment of the WEB Act. Do you think that there is a
relationship between enactment of that law and the decline and
then leveling of cross-border fraud complaints as a percentage
of total complaints in the last 3 years?
Mr. Stevenson. I would like to think so but it is difficult
to see cause and effect there. We did have an international
program before that. We certainly think that we have become
more effective in addressing these problems. The scale though,
as I mentioned, of the problems make it difficult to quantify
the exact effect. And you are correct that the numbers--
although the percentage in terms of cross-border fraud
complaints has been largely flat--in absolute numbers we have
seen, for example, this year over 100,000 U.S. consumers making
such a complaint even with the caveat that there are probably
more that don't even realize they are cross-border complaints.
Mr. Butterfield. Can you tell us whether particular types
of frauds are driving the increase in the overall number of
consumer complaints about fraud, both with respect to cross-
border and non-cross-border?
Mr. Stevenson. Particular types of frauds?
Mr. Butterfield. Yes.
Mr. Stevenson. We certainly see and lay out in our reports
the trends that we have seen and certain kinds of problems
being more apparent. Robocalls, for example, I think have been
an area where we have seen more activity. There has been
probably more activity in the kind of grandparent imposter
fraud and that kind of thing, people contacting someone saying,
``I am out of money, you need to wire it to me really
quickly,'' that kind of thing. So we have seen various trends
of that sort.
The cases we brought in India recently involve bogus debt
collection fraud where people were called and said we are going
to put you in jail, we are going to get you fired, that kind of
thing, if you don't pay off this couple-hundred-dollar debt
that it turned out the consumer in fact didn't owe to them or
didn't owe at all.
Mr. Butterfield. Can you speak for a moment about the FTC's
Consumer Sentinel Database? Is that in any way related to the
watch list that one of my colleagues raised a few moments ago?
Mr. Stevenson. Yes, the Consumer Sentinel Database is a
database that we set up to try to combine from as many sources
as possible the complaints that people were seeing. And
consumers don't all report to the same place, and so we want no
wrong door, that wherever they get reported, we try to gather
it together. If we just rely on FTC complaints, we might see
them arriving 10 in a week, 20 in a week. We combine it all
together, we might see them coming in at 100 a week. We can see
where there is the real problem as opposed to the legitimate
disputes that obviously consumers have with businesses. And so
it has been very useful for that purpose.
We are trying to combine more and more data from other
participants. We get data from the Canadian enforcement
agencies, the complaint data. We get data through something
called econsumer.gov that now is, I think, in eight languages
of complaints involving ecommerce online that we have 20-some
partner agencies around the world. So we are trying to collect
that information.
I hope I did not misunderstand your colleague's message,
but that is different from a watch list. And this is
unverified, obviously. We want to look at it as the lead, as
the starting point for our investigations, but it gives us a
tremendous running start if we have it.
Mr. Butterfield. Are there law enforcement agencies or
governmental agencies or even other countries that you would
like to work with to enforce the law that you are not currently
working with?
Mr. Stevenson. We certainly are interested in developing
further our relationships with a lot of other countries. As I
mentioned, in some ways the relationships we have built with
the Canadians are a model and have been very extensive. In
other countries we have had less experience, it is a newer
issue, they may have newer agencies, it may be not yet the
higher priority for them, and so we are certainly doing that.
And some of our technical assistance work in consumer
protection, it also has the benefit, in addition to the good
government--larger sense--benefits of developing our
relationships with those agencies in those other countries, and
to make them aware of this work and to make them aware of why
it should be a high priority.
Mr. Butterfield. Very good. Thank you.
Mr. Stevenson. Thank you.
Mrs. Bono Mack. All right. Seeing no other members present,
we are going to begin wrapping up.
I want to again thank you very much, Mr. Stevenson, for
being with us today. You have been very gracious for your time.
I know I certainly appreciate what you are doing. I look
forward to working with you in the future as the U.S. SAFE WEB
Act moves through the legislative process.
I remind members that they have 10 business days to submit
questions for the record and I would ask the witness to please
respond promptly to any questions that you might receive.
And with that, the hearing is now adjourned.
Mr. Stevenson. Thank you.
[Whereupon, at 10:55 a.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]
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