Online scams are nothing new. They are nearly as old as the internet itself. Most of us have grown intelligent to most scams that are pedaled on the web but many still fall for the old tricks. To legally tackle the culprits behind online scams, President Obama has now signed a bill which would let FTC deal with them more effectively.
The bill is titled ‘Safe Web Act’ and is not really new. It was passed by Congress back in 2006 but was due to expire soon. However, now that the President has plastered his approval across it, the bill stays valid until the year 2020.
The bill essentially empowers Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to extend its anti-scam activities across the border. In most cases, it means sharing information with authorities in other countries to help them notify about the potential scams.
Cross-border scam cases are very significant for FTC since a significant majority of internet scams emanate from a few well-known regions. Within its former jurisdiction, FTC could do little to put a permanent stop to a scam-scheme, even if it got to know about it. With the cross-border information sharing, the agency is in a far better position to persuade its counterparts in other countries to take action and bring the culprits to justice.
According to outgoing Californian Republican Rep. Mary Bono Mack, “This is a win-win. It’s good for American consumers. It’s good for the future of e-commerce. And it’s the right thing to do for our nation and our friends around the world. “With nearly 1.5 billion credit cards 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 fight online fraud.”
Courtesy: The Hill
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