Regulating Unfair Practices Under The FTC Act: The Need For a Legal Standard of Unfairness

This article will examine the Commission's past and proposed use of the unfairness theory to justify these trade regulation rules. It is the thesis of this article that the Commission has not defined adequately the parameters of the amorphous statutory term "unfair... acts or practices" nor analyzed the term sufficiently or consistently in its application to trade regulation rules. By purposefully leaving the unfairness theory vague, the Commission invites judicial reversals of its regulations and legislative limitations on its authority.