Every administration in recent history has attempted to reduce regulatory redundancies. One area of regulatory redundancy that deserves attention is the Federal Trade Commission’s (FTC) and Department of Transportation’s (DOT) consumer protection authority over online travel agents (OTAs), which generated $111 billion in revenue in 2013. This regulatory redundancy guarantees that two agencies will oversee OTAs, prevents harmonization of online consumer protection policy, and is likely to impose unnecessary costs on OTAs to adhere to two separate regulatory regimes. The importance of this conflict will grow as privacy and data security become preeminent consumer protection issues and DOT expands its jurisdiction to online information providers. Efficiency suggests the FTC as the sole consumer protection overseer of OTAs. Only the FTC has the current capacity to regulate all OTA activities, and it enjoys unrivaled expertise with respect to e-commerce consumer…
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