This is a verification checklist for editors and research assistants who plan to cite the FTC's Competition Counts page. The page is a non-technical overview of how the FTC's Bureau of Competition protects free enterprise and American consumers, published on 2022-03-04. The point of checking before you cite is simple: this is a plain-language explainer of competition principles, not a data release, not a case study, and not a statement about any specific market or firm.
The organizing idea is stated directly: competition in America is about price, selection, and service. It benefits consumers by keeping prices low and the quality and choice of goods and services high, and it also encourages businesses to offer new and better products. Everything you write should trace back to that frame rather than to a specific enforcement action, because the page does not describe one.
Step 1: Confirm what kind of document you have
- Status: a published educational overview, dated 2022-03-04. It is not an enforcement decision, a proposed rule, or an approval.
- Author entity: the Federal Trade Commission, described on the page as enforcing antitrust laws so that markets are open and free.
- Scope: a non-technical overview of how the FTC's Bureau of Competition protects free enterprise and American consumers.
If a draft headline implies a new policy, a new penalty, or a new investigation, the draft has moved past what this page establishes. Rewrite the headline around the explainer's own subject matter, or attach a different source.
Step 2: Separate the illustrative questions from findings
The page opens with hypothetical framing: what if there were only one grocery store in your community, what if you could buy a phone from only one retailer, what if only one dealer in your area sold cars. These are rhetorical illustrations, not evidence about any local market. A careful citation marks them as examples, not as findings.
The page then supplies its own chain of reasoning about those examples. Without competition, the grocer may have no incentive to lower prices; the phone shop may have no reason to offer a range of choices; the car dealer may not keep its showroom open at convenient hours or offer competitive financing. Note the hedged wording: "may." Do not convert these into measured outcomes or documented harms.
Step 3: Check the attribution of the enforcement claim
The enforcement statement on the page is general: by enforcing antitrust laws, the FTC helps to ensure that markets are open and free. The FTC promotes free and open competition and challenges anticompetitive business practices to make sure consumers have access to quality goods and services at competitive prices, and that businesses can compete on the merits of their work.
The page also draws a line worth preserving in any write-up: the FTC does not choose winners and losers; the consumer does that. The agency's stated job is to make sure businesses are competing fairly within a set of rules. A draft that credits the agency with picking market outcomes contradicts the source.
Step 4: Handle the sector list precisely
The page says the FTC puts its antitrust resources to work through its Bureaus of Competition and Economics, especially where consumer interest and spending are high, in matters affecting energy, health care, food, pharmaceuticals, professional services, computer technology and databases, medical devices, and funeral services.
That is a description of emphasis, not a ranking and not a claim of activity in any one of those areas on any date. If your piece needs a sector-specific claim, this page will not support it; use it only to describe where the agency says it concentrates resources.
Step 5: Apply a source-to-sentence test
A short worked example, Hypothetical: suppose a draft says the explainer shows that limiting a market to one retailer raises consumer prices by a certain percentage. That sentence fails the test. The page presents the single-retailer scenario as a question and speaks of incentives, not measured price changes, and it contains no percentage. To satisfy the test, each sentence should map to a statement the page actually makes, such as competition being about price, selection, and service.
| Draft element | Supported by the page? | Fix |
|---|---|---|
| "The FTC found that a single grocer raises prices" | No — the page poses a question and uses "may" | Reframe as an illustration of incentives |
| "Competition covers price, selection, and service" | Yes | Keep as stated |
| "The FTC picks which firms win" | No — the page says the opposite | Correct to the consumer-choice framing |
| "The FTC prioritizes energy and health care matters" | Yes, as stated emphasis | Keep wording about emphasis, not volume |
What the source does not say
The page does not provide market statistics, price measurements, or case outcomes. It does not name any company, market, or transaction. It does not state how many matters the agency has opened or closed in any sector. It does not establish that any specific practice is unlawful, and it does not describe the legal standard a case must meet. It also does not tell you whether the page's content has changed since 2022-03-04.
If your assignment requires any of those items, this page is context, not the citation. Label it as background on how the agency describes its competition role, and source the specific facts elsewhere.
Before publishing
- Mark the grocery, phone, and car scenarios as illustrations.
- Preserve hedged verbs such as "may" where the page uses them.
- Keep the consumer-choice line intact if you mention the agency's role.
- Treat the sector list as emphasis, not measurement.
- State the date 2022-03-04 when dating the explainer.
Done this way, a short write-up can accurately describe what the page is and is not, which is often more useful to readers than a paraphrase that drifts into claims the text never made.