The FTC is skilled at public relations and “protecting consumers” is a newsworthy event. This means that a trial or a consent order isn’t the end of your ordeal.

Instead, a press release will be issued and perhaps a press conference held that will spin what happened in a very favorable light for the FTC at your expense.

Your legal counsel can sometimes mitigate the damages but that depends in part on whether the FTC is using you to send a warning to others in your industry. Your public relations consultant can counter-spin the media but some of the mud thrown your way will probably stick.

What you have done by accident may make you look like Scrooge preying upon the poor, the sick, and the elderly by the time you read the stories online or in a newspaper.

If restitution or other monetary payments are required as part of the settlement, that amount may be inflated in the press coverage.

This can cause a “blood in the water” reaction.

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," "How to Create Your Own Internet Business Without a Lawyer for Under $175," and the creator of Website Legal Forms Generator^TM. 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.