The Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) launched a new online Business Product Safety Complaint portal through which a business can anonymously alert CPSC of competitor products in the marketplace that businesses believe do not comply with mandatory safety standards or are otherwise unsafe for consumers. While CPSC has always allowed consumers to report similar concerns regarding potential unsafe products online, the new Business Product Safety Complaint portal is directed specifically at the business community. CPSC hopes that businesses will embrace and make regular use of the portal, allowing CPSC staff to be alerted to potential product safety hazards more frequently and sooner.
This portal was spearheaded by CPSC Commissioners Peter Feldman and Douglas Dziak, who released a statement in support of the portal. Commissioners Feldman and Dziak noted that the portal is meant to harness “market forces and private sector knowledge to improve consumer safety. . . . This new portal will provide firms, importers, and other market participants an opportunity to alert the Commission to dangerous or violative products more easily.”
According to Feldman and Dziak, the idea behind the portal originated in 2022, based largely on feedback from stakeholders. As the Commissioners explained, “we heard the frustration of firms that are forced to compete against unscrupulous market participants who seek unfair advantage by skirting mandatory safety requirements. Businesses often find out about unsafe products before the Commission, and they have every incentive to alert regulators about competitor products. Until now, they have not had a convenient mechanism to do so.”
This may be a welcome tool for compliant companies that feel like they are competing on an unlevel playing field with competitors that are skirting mandatory safety standards. But some have also expressed skepticism, thinking some businesses may try to take advantage of the anonymity of the tool by harassing or badgering its competitors with false or misleading reports.
No matter how businesses ultimately use the tool, this is yet another example of CPSC’s continued increase of its enforcement efforts.
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