27794 Federal Register / Vol. 74, No. 111 / Thursday, June 11, 2009 / Notices 

1 The comment must be accompanied by an 

explicit request for confidential treatment, 

including the factual and legal basis for the request, 

and must identify the specific portions of the 

comment to be withheld from the public record. 

The request will be granted or denied by the 

Commission’s General Counsel, consistent with 

applicable law and the public interest. See FTC 

Rule 4.9(c), 16 CFR 4.9(c). 

District; Port of Port Arthur Navigation 

District of Jefferson County, Texas; 

Tampa Port Authority; Port of Corpus 

Christi Authority of Nueces County, 

Texas; Panama City Port Authority; Port 

of Pensacola; Port Freeport; Jackson 

County Port Authority; Manatee Port 

Authority; St. Bernard Port, Harbor and 

Terminal District; and Plaquemines 

Port, Harbor and Terminal District. 

Filing Party: Allen Moeller, Chairman; 

Port of Pascagoula; 3033 Pascagoula 

Street; Pascagoula, MS 39567. 

Synopsis: The amendment updates 

agreement language and membership 

list. 

Agreement No.: 201202. 

Title: Oakland MTO Agreement. 

Parties: Eagle Marine Services, Ltd.; 

Seaside Transportation Service LLC; 

SSA Terminals (Oakland), LLC; Total 

Terminals International, LLC; Transbay 

Container Terminal, Inc.; and Trapac, 

Inc. 

Filing Party: David F. Smith, Esq.; 

Sher & Blackwell LLP; 1850 M Street, 

NW.; Suite 900; Washington, DC 20036. 

Synopsis: The agreement would 

authorize the parties to discuss, 

exchange information, and reach 

agreement regarding various matters 

pertaining to their operations at the Port 

of Oakland. 

Dated: June 5, 2009. 

By Order of the Federal Maritime 

Commission. 

Tanga S. FitzGibbon, 

Assistant Secretary. 

[FR Doc. E9–13633 Filed 6–10–09; 8:45 am] 

BILLING CODE 6730–01–P 

FEDERAL TRADE COMMISSION 

Agency Information Collection 

Activities; Proposed Collection; 

Comment Request 

AGENCY: Federal Trade Commission 

(‘‘FTC’’ or ‘‘Commission’’). 

ACTION: Notice. 

SUMMARY: The FTC intends to conduct 

two exploratory studies on consumer 

susceptibility to fraudulent and 

deceptive marketing. This research will 

be conducted to further the FTC’s 

mission of protecting consumers from 

unfair and deceptive marketing. Before 

gathering this information, the FTC is 

seeking public comments on its 

proposed research. This notice seeks 

comments on the Fraud Susceptibility 

Experiment Study, one of the two 

studies. The Commission is also seeking 

comments on the other study in a 

separate Federal Register notice. 

Comments will be considered before the 

FTC submits a request for Office of 

Management and Budget (OMB) review 

under the Paperwork Reduction Act 

(PRA). 

DATES: Comments must be submitted on 

or before August 10, 2009. 

ADDRESSES: Interested parties are 

invited to submit written comments 

electronically or in paper form. 

Comments should refer to ‘‘Fraud 

Susceptibility Experiment, FTC File No. 

P095501’’ to facilitate the organization 

of comments. Please note that your 

comment—including your name and 

your state—will be placed on the public 

record of this proceeding, including on 

the publicly accessible FTC Website, at 

(http://www.ftc.gov/os/ 

publiccomments.shtm). 

Because comments will be made 

public, they should not include any 

sensitive personal information, such as 

an individual’s Social Security Number; 

date of birth; driver’s license number or 

other state identification number, or 

foreign country equivalent; passport 

number; financial account number; or 

credit or debit card number. Comments 

also should not include any sensitive 

health information, such as medical 

records or other individually 

identifiable health information. In 

addition, comments should not include 

any ‘‘[t]rade secret or any commercial or 

financial information which is obtained 

from any person and which is privileged 

or confidential. . . .,’’ as provided in 

Section 6(f) of the Federal Trade 

Commission Act (‘‘FTC Act’’), 15 U.S.C. 

46(f), and FTC Rule 4.10(a)(2), 16 CFR 

4.10(a)(2). Comments containing 

material for which confidential 

treatment is requested must be filed in 

paper form, must be clearly labeled 

‘‘Confidential,’’ and must comply with 

FTC Rule 4.9(c), 16 CFR 4.9(c).1

Because paper mail addressed to the 

FTC is subject to delay due to 

heightened security screening, please 

consider submitting your comments in 

electronic form. Comments filed in 

electronic form should be submitted by 

using the following weblink: (https:// 

secure.commentworks.com/ftcfraudexperiment) (and following the 

instructions on the web-based form). To 

ensure that the Commission considers 

an electronic comment, you must file it 

on the web-based form at the weblink: 

(https://secure.commentworks.com/ftcfraudexperiment). If this Notice appears 

at (http://www.regulations.gov/search/ 

index.jsp), you may also file an 

electronic comment through that 

website. The Commission will consider 

all comments that regulations.gov 

forwards to it. You may also visit the 

FTC Website at http://www.ftc.gov to 

read the Notice and the news release 

describing it. 

A comment filed in paper form 

should include the ‘‘Fraud 

Susceptibility Experiment, FTC File No. 

P095501’’reference both in the text and 

on the envelope, and should be mailed 

or delivered to the following address: 

Federal Trade Commission, Office of the 

Secretary, Room H-135 (Annex J), 600 

Pennsylvania Avenue, NW, Washington, 

DC 20580. The FTC is requesting that 

any comment filed in paper form be sent 

by courier or overnight service, if 

possible, because U.S. postal mail in the 

Washington area and at the Commission 

is subject to delay due to heightened 

security precautions. 

The FTC Act and other laws the 

Commission administers permit the 

collection of public comments to 

consider and use in this proceeding as 

appropriate. The Commission will 

consider all timely and responsive 

public comments that it receives, 

whether filed in paper or electronic 

form. Comments received will be 

available to the public on the FTC 

Website, to the extent practicable, at 

(http://www.ftc.gov/os/ 

publiccomments.shtm). As a matter of 

discretion, the Commission makes every 

effort to remove home contact 

information for individuals from the 

public comments it receives before 

placing those comments on the FTC 

Website. More information, including 

routine uses permitted by the Privacy 

Act, may be found in the FTC’s privacy 

policy, at (http://www.ftc.gov/ftc/ 

privacy.shtm). 

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: 

Requests for additional information 

should be addressed to Patrick 

McAlvanah, Economist, Bureau of 

Economics, Federal Trade Commission, 

600 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW, Mail 

Stop NJ-4136, Washington, DC 20580. 

Telephone: (202) 326-2974; e-mail: 

fraudexperiment@ftc.gov. 

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: 

I. Background 

As part of its consumer protection 

mission, the FTC has brought hundreds 

of cases targeting fraud, and has 

committed significant resources to 

educational initiatives designed to 

protect consumers. The Commission 


jlentini on PROD1PC65 with NOTICES
Federal Register / Vol. 74, No. 111 / Thursday, June 11, 2009 / Notices 27795 

2 Information on the Fraud Forum is available at: 

(http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/workshops/fraudforum/ 

index.shtm). 

3 The Commission has published two staff reports 

describing the results of these surveys — Consumer 

Fraud in the United States: An FTC Survey 

(published August 2004 and available at (http:// 

www.ftc.gov/reports/consumerfraud/ 

040805confraudrpt.pdf)) and Consumer Fraud in 

the United States: The Second FTC Survey 

(published in October 2007 and available at (http:// 

www.ftc.gov/opa/2007/10/fraud.pdf). 

4 Staff has contracted with a faculty member of 

George Mason University who will recruit the study 

subjects and oversee and administer the 

experiment. 

5 See Annamaria Lusardi, Financial Literacy: An 

Essential Tool for Informed Consumer Choice?, 

Working Paper, Joint Center for Housing Studies, 

Harvard University (2008), for examples of financial 

literacy questions similar to those the FTC is 

considering. 

6 Staff anticipates using standard risk aversion 

measurement methodologies akin to those in 

Charles Holt and Susan Laury, Risk Aversion and 

Incentive Effects, American Economic Review, 

December 2002, 1644-1655. 

7 Several academic articles report that people are 

more willing to take identical risks over monetary 

gambles if the risk is presented as an opportunity 

to escape losses rather than as a chance to gain. Our 

‘‘framing’’ methodologies may emulate those in 

Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman, The Framing 

of Decisions and the Psychology of Choice, Science, 

Vol. 211, No. 4481 (Jan. 30, 1981), 453-458. 

8 Staff anticipates using methodology similar to 

that in Stephan Meier and Charles Sprenger, 

Impatience and Credit Behavior: Evidence from a 

Field Experiment, Working Papers 07-3, Federal 

Reserve Bank of Boston (2007). 

9 Staff plans to use standard questions similar to 

those in Manju Puri and David Robinson, Optimism 

and Economic Choice, Journal of Financial 

Economics, 2007, Vol. 86, 71-99. 

10 Staff may use the scale developed in Carl 

Obermiller and Eric Spangenberg, Development of 

a Scale to Measure Consumer Skepticism toward 

Advertising, Journal of Consumer Psychology, Vol. 

7, No. 2, 1998, 159-186. 

hosted a Fraud Forum 2 on February 25- 

26, 2009 to examine fraud in the market 

place. The Commission has also 

conducted telephone surveys in 2003 

and 2005 designed to measure the 

proportion of the U.S. adult population 

that has fallen victim to various 

consumer frauds.3 Despite this, 

surprisingly little is known about what 

determines consumers’ susceptibility to 

fraud. For example, the 2003 and 2005 

FTC Consumer Fraud surveys found 

that education was not a significant 

predictor of fraud victimization. 

Understanding when and why people 

are vulnerable to fraud would better 

inform the FTC’s substantial, ongoing 

efforts to fight fraud through law 

enforcement and consumer education. 

Any additional insights into how and 

why people fall victim to fraud could 

also help improve any future fraud 

surveys the Commission may undertake. 

The study announced in this notice is 

a preliminary and exploratory step 

toward facilitating those efforts. The 

study is not intended to lead to 

enforcement actions; rather, study 

results may aid the FTC’s efforts to 

better target its enforcement actions and 

consumer education initiatives, and 

improve future fraud surveys. 

Economic and psychological 

experiments have identified several 

decision-making biases, such as 

impulsivity, over-confidence, overoptimism, and loss aversion, that can 

cause inaccurate assessments of the 

risks, costs, and benefits of various 

choices. FTC staff proposes to conduct 

an economic laboratory experiment to 

study whether these types of decision 

biases are related to consumer 

susceptibility to fraudulent or deceptive 

marketing claims. Staff intends to study 

consumers’ assessment of potentially 

deceptive advertisements, in addition to 

their assessment of non-deceptive 

advertisements. Staff seeks to 

understand which characteristics of 

individuals and advertisements predict 

consumers’ ability to differentiate 

between apparently fraudulent materials 

and apparently legitimate materials. 

II. Paperwork Reduction Act 

As required by Section 3506(c)(2)(A) 

of the PRA, 44 U.S.C. 3501-21, the FTC 

is providing this opportunity for public 

comment before requesting that OMB 

approve the study. Under the PRA, 

federal agencies must obtain OMB 

approval for each collection of 

information they conduct or sponsor. 

‘‘Collection of information’’ means 

agency requests or requirements that 

members of the public submit reports, 

keep records, or provide information to 

a third party. 44 U.S.C. 3502(3); 5 CFR 

1320.3(c). 

Specifically, the FTC invites 

comments on: (1) whether the proposed 

collection of information is necessary 

for the proper performance of the 

functions of the FTC, including whether 

the information will have practical 

utility; (2) the accuracy of the FTC’s 

estimate of the burden of the proposed 

collection of information; (3) ways to 

enhance the quality, utility, and clarity 

of the information to be collected; and 

(4) ways to minimize the burden of 

collecting information on those who 

respond, including through the use of 

appropriate automated, electronic, 

mechanical, or other technological 

collection techniques or other forms of 

information technology, e.g., permitting 

electronic submission of responses. All 

comments should be filed as prescribed 

in the ADDRESS section above, and must 

be received on or before August 10, 

2009. 

A. Description of the Collection of 

Information and Proposed Use 

The FTC proposes to conduct an 

experiment in a university’s economics 

laboratory with 250 subjects drawn from 

the campus community.4 A sampling of 

250 persons enables random assignment 

of subjects into different experimental 

conditions of sufficient size for analytic 

power. The sample is not intended to be 

nationally representative, but will still 

provide useful insights into consumer 

susceptibility to fraud. 

The study will gauge consumer 

attitudes towards legitimate and 

potentially fraudulent or deceptive 

advertisements. Staff plans to ask 

subjects to examine advertisements or 

other descriptions of fraudulent 

products and report their opinion about 

the credibility of product claims. Staff 

also plans to ask participants to rate the 

credibility of advertisements for 

apparently legitimate products to gauge 

how participants distinguish between 

apparently fraudulent product claims 

and legitimate product claims. Staff 

plans to measure consumer knowledge, 

risk attitudes, impulsivity, and 

skepticism using existing methods from 

economics and psychology research. 

Staff may measure consumer knowledge 

using consumer literacy and financial 

literacy surveys 5 in order to test 

subjects’ marketplace understanding 

and sophistication. Staff seeks to 

determine if people with such 

knowledge deem fraudulent 

advertisements to be less credible than 

legitimate advertisements. Staff plans to 

measure subjects’ risk attitudes through 

a series of choices between smaller 

certain amounts of money or larger risky 

amounts.6 Staff may describe the 

product to some subjects as creating 

benefits, while presenting to other 

subjects nearly identical information 

depicted as a reduction in harm. Staff 

would then test whether risk-averse and 

loss-averse subjects are particularly 

susceptible to fraudulent claims framed 

as opportunities to escape losses.7 Staff 

may measure subjects’ impulsivity 

through a series of choices between 

smaller monetary amounts received 

sooner or larger amounts but received 

later.8 Staff would then test to see if 

impulsive subjects are more susceptible 

to fraudulent claims. Staff plans to elicit 

measures of optimism 9 and 

skepticism 10 to determine their roles in 

deeming advertisements, both of 

fraudulent and legitimate products, as 

credible. In addition, staff anticipates 

collecting demographic information 

from the surveyed subjects. The FTC has 

contracted with the faculty of a 

university-run experimental economics 


jlentini on PROD1PC65 with NOTICES
27796 Federal Register / Vol. 74, No. 111 / Thursday, June 11, 2009 / Notices 

1 The comment must be accompanied by an 

explicit request for confidential treatment, 

including the factual and legal basis for the request, 

and must identify the specific portions of the 

comment to be withheld from the public record. 

The request will be granted or denied by the 

Commission’s General Counsel, consistent with 

applicable law and the public interest. See FTC 

Rule 4.9(c), 16 CFR 4.9(c). 

laboratory to locate and recruit subjects 

and conduct the experiments. 

Staff will pre-test the experimental 

procedures with 9 subjects to ensure 

that the instructions provided to 

participants are clear and 

comprehensible, and that the 

experimental procedures are workable. 

Pre-test subjects will be drawn from 

FTC staff not involved with the study. 

B. Estimated Hours Burden 

The FTC plans to seek information 

from up to 250 respondents for 

approximately 90 minutes each; thus, 

approximately 375 hours in total. Pretesting hours are not included in the 

estimated burden because the pre-test 

subjects will be FTC employees. 

C. Estimated Costs Burden 

The cost per respondent should be 

negligible. Participation will not require 

start-up, capital, or labor expenditures 

by respondents. The above-noted 

contractor will recruit the student and 

community member subjects to 

participate in this study; subjects will be 

asked to respond to an initial 

recruitment email to participate 

voluntarily. Staff will compensate all 

subjects for their participation in the 90- 

minute study. Subjects will receive 

approximately $8 as a show-up fee; in 

addition, they will be compensated 

according to their choices for some of 

the tasks. Staff expects subjects to earn 

on average $22 for these tasks, with a 

range of approximately $12-$32, based 

on expectations of possible 

experimental outcomes. As such, 

subjects will receive approximately $20- 

$40 for the 90-minute study. 

By direction of the Commission. 

Donald S. Clark, 

Secretary 

[FR Doc. E9–13642 Filed 6–10–09: 8:45 am] 

[BILLING CODE 6750–01–S] 

FEDERAL TRADE COMMISSION 

Agency Information Collection 

Activities; Proposed Collection; 

Comment Request 

AGENCY: Federal Trade Commission 

(‘‘FTC’’ or ‘‘Commission’’). 

ACTION: Notice. 

SUMMARY: The FTC intends to conduct 

two exploratory studies on consumer 

susceptibility to fraudulent and 

deceptive marketing. This research will 

be conducted to further the FTC’s 

mission of protecting consumers from 

unfair and deceptive marketing. Before 

gathering this information, the FTC is 

seeking public comments on its 

proposed research. This notice seeks 

comments on the Fraud Susceptibility 

Internet Panel Study, one of the two 

studies. The Commission is also seeking 

comments on the other study in a 

separate Federal Register notice. 

Comments will be considered before the 

FTC submits a request for Office of 

Management and Budget (OMB) review 

under the Paperwork Reduction Act 

(PRA). 

DATES: Comments must be submitted on 

or before August 10, 2009. 

ADDRESSES: Interested parties are 

invited to submit written comments 

electronically or in paper form. 

Comments should refer to ‘‘Fraud 

Susceptibility Internet Panel Study, FTC 

File No. P095500’’ to facilitate the 

organization of comments. Please note 

that your comment—including your 

name and your state—will be placed on 

the public record of this proceeding, 

including on the publicly accessible 

FTC Website, at (http://www.ftc.gov/os/ 

publiccomments.shtm). 

Because comments will be made 

public, they should not include any 

sensitive personal information, such as 

an individual’s Social Security Number; 

date of birth; driver’s license number or 

other state identification number, or 

foreign country equivalent; passport 

number; financial account number; or 

credit or debit card number. Comments 

also should not include any sensitive 

health information, such as medical 

records or other individually 

identifiable health information. In 

addition, comments should not include 

any ‘‘[t]rade secret or any commercial or 

financial information which is obtained 

from any person and which is privileged 

or confidential. . . .,’’ as provided in 

Section 6(f) of the Federal Trade 

Commission Act (‘‘FTC Act’’), 15 U.S.C. 

46(f), and FTC Rule 4.10(a)(2), 16 CFR 

4.10(a)(2). Comments containing 

material for which confidential 

treatment is requested must be filed in 

paper form, must be clearly labeled 

‘‘Confidential,’’ and must comply with 

FTC Rule 4.9(c), 16 CFR 4.9(c).1

Because paper mail addressed to the 

FTC is subject to delay due to 

heightened security screening, please 

consider submitting your comments in 

electronic form. Comments filed in 

electronic form should be submitted by 

using the following weblink: (https:// 

secure.commentworks.com/ftcfraudinternetpanel) (and following the 

instructions on the web-based form). To 

ensure that the Commission considers 

an electronic comment, you must file it 

on the web-based form at the weblink: 

(https://secure.commentworks.com/ftcfraudinternetpanel). If this Notice 

appears at (http://www.regulations.gov/ 

search/index.jsp), you may also file an 

electronic comment through that 

website. The Commission will consider 

all comments that regulations.gov 

forwards to it. You may also visit the 

FTC Website at http://www.ftc.gov to 

read the Notice and the news release 

describing it. 

A comment filed in paper form 

should include the reference Fraud 

Susceptibility Internet Panel Study, FTC 

File No. P095500’’ both in the text and 

on the envelope, and should be mailed 

or delivered to the following address: 

Federal Trade Commission, Office of the 

Secretary, Room H-135 (Annex J), 600 

Pennsylvania Avenue, NW, Washington, 

DC 20580. The FTC is requesting that 

any comment filed in paper form be sent 

by courier or overnight service, if 

possible, because U.S. postal mail in the 

Washington area and at the Commission 

is subject to delay due to heightened 

security precautions. 

The FTC Act and other laws the 

Commission administers permit the 

collection of public comments to 

consider and use in this proceeding as 

appropriate. The Commission will 

consider all timely and responsive 

public comments that it receives, 

whether filed in paper or electronic 

form. Comments received will be 

available to the public on the FTC 

Website, to the extent practicable, at 

(http://www.ftc.gov/os/ 

publiccomments.shtm). As a matter of 

discretion, the Commission makes every 

effort to remove home contact 

information for individuals from the 

public comments it receives before 

placing those comments on the FTC 

Website. More information, including 

routine uses permitted by the Privacy 

Act, may be found in the FTC’s privacy 

policy, at (http://www.ftc.gov/ftc/ 

privacy.shtm). 

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: 

Requests for additional information 

should be addressed to Keith B. 

Anderson, Economist, Bureau of 

Economics, Federal Trade Commission, 

600 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW, Mail 

Stop NJ-4136, Washington, DC 20580. 

Telephone: (202) 326-3428; e-mail: 

fraudinternetpanel@ftc.gov. 

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: 


jlentini on PROD1PC65 with NOTICES