Dealing with an FTC investigation or lawsuit can be a lengthy and expensive event for you. Few businesses can afford to fight.

In addition to the legal fees, there are the lost opportunity costs. Every moment you spend dealing with a government investigation or lawsuit is one less that you can spend on growing your business.

The FTC knows this…and now you do too.

Many business owners find that it is less damaging to settle with the FTC than to fight regardless of the merits.

Although FTC investigations are usually non-public, it is a different story for trials and consent orders. If you and the FTC decide to settle, a proposed consent order with the settlement terms is published for public comment. After 30 days, the FTC can make it a final settlement.

If you subsequently violate the consent order, the FTC can go to court to enforce it.

The good news is that you don’t have to admit liability in a consent order.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t end there.

About the Author

With an advanced international law degree from Georgetown University and more than 14 years of real world legal experience, Attorney Mike Young shows entrepreneurs how to protect and grow their businesses online. He's the author of Internet Marketing Legal Secrets Revealed. Not just a lawyer who focuses exclusively on Internet and marketing law, Mike’s been working with computers for more than 27 years (his first computer was an Atari 400 with 8 KiB RAM) and started representing Internet businesses back in 1996.