On April 3, the FTC published its strategic plan for FY 2026–2030. The plan is organized around three strategic goals: (i) protecting Americans from unfair or deceptive practices in the marketplace; (ii) promoting competition and preventing illegal monopolies; and (iii) maximizing mission outcomes through operational efficiency. The plan provides an updated vision statement and a revised mission statement that calls on the FTC to “[v]igorously enforce the law to protect Americans from anticompetitive, unfair, and deceptive business practices, without unduly burdening legitimate business activity.” FTC Chairman Andrew Ferguson said the restored phrase reflects the agency’s “commitment to end overregulation of American businesses that compete fairly and deal honestly with consumers.” The chairman also highlighted: (i) protecting children online as a priority, citing the agency’s enforcement of COPPA; (ii) the elimination of performance metrics deemed to be “not providing actionable data”; and (iii) the addition of a cost-benefit metric to measure the agency’s total benefit to consumers compared to its net cost.

On consumer protection, the plan identifies key program areas including combating fraud and deception, addressing privacy and data security, protecting older adults and servicemembers, and holding technology companies accountable for unlawful conduct harming children. As to competition, the plan emphasizes enforcement against anticompetitive mergers and unfair methods of competition, studying the impact of no-poach, noncompete, and wage-fixing agreements on worker wages and benefits, the use of in-house FTC economists as expert witnesses to reduce costs, and collaboration with domestic and international law enforcement partners to advance U.S. interests. The plan also encompasses operational improvements, such as reducing the agency’s physical space footprint, deploying AI and data analytics tools, and modernizing IT infrastructure through cloud-based solutions.