The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is an American organization that aims to protect consumers. They also enforce competition law by preventing companies from becoming too powerful through monopolistic activities. They investigate irregularities and cases that are detrimental to consumers that have been reported by the consumers and consumer organizations. But cases are also reported by companies, Congress and or by journalists. This often involves fraud, deception by advertisers, and is not limited to a single company, but can also target an entire industry.
Almost every country that wants to maintain a regulated economic system has one or more independently operating bodies that are concerned with the control of trading activities and business operations. For example, in Belgium this is the Belgian Competition Authority, in the Netherlands the Authority for Consumers & Markets (ACM) and for Europe the European Commission. The UK has the Chartered Trading Standards Institute (CTSI) . All these organizations protect the interests of consumers and ensure that companies have their affairs in order.
The FTC has a clear guideline regarding network marketing that is used as a guideline for many of the US large network marketing companies. That is why it is also important to know as a starting and advanced network marketer. The FTC sees Multi-Level Marketing (NW1) as a diverse and varied industry, within which different structures and sales methods exist. The FTC believes that, although products or services are sold in different ways within the industry, it doesn’t mean that members of the industry don’t need to apply the rules governing consumer protection. To this end, the FTC has drawn up guidelines to provide network marketers with guidance to carry out their work in an honorably fair manner by applying the rules, which are not binding, in their work.