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The Federal Trade Commission announced today that Commission actions from the past 37 years, including documents previously available to the general public only in book form, are now available on the agency’s Web site. These volumes – more than 70,000 pages covering 1969 through 2005 – contain virtually all administrative documents issued by the Commission, including Opinions, Final Orders, Complaints, and Consent Orders that result from negotiated consent agreements, as well as all Initial Decisions issued by Administrative Law Judges in administrative trial proceedings.

Until now, “Federal Trade Commission Decisions, Volumes 75 - 128," have been freely available to the general public only in printed form, primarily at federal depository libraries. Volumes 129-140 are not currently available in book form, and by instead publishing them in electronic form, the Commission will save substantial production costs. Moreover, in the past the Volumes have not included copies of the detailed explanations -- analyses to aid public comment -- that the Commission issues whenever it accepts an administrative consent agreement for public comment. Volumes 129-140 include these analyses, in immediate proximity to the consent order documents they describe, in order to facilitate public access to all aspects of the Commission decision-making process.

Future FTC Decisions Volumes also will include Commission analyses to aid public comment, and will be posted online semiannually. In addition, Volumes 1-74 (1914 through 1968), formerly available to the general public only in book form, also will be posted online. These efforts constitute another step in the Commission’s continuous effort to increase the transparency of its public actions -- and to make the bases for its decisions as widely and readily available to the public as possible -- by making an ever-expanding number and variety of public FTC documents freely available on its Web site.

Media Contact:

FTC Office of Public Affairs
202-326-2180

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