The Federal Trade Commission will issue $50,000 to anyone who can stop robotic marketing calls that are not only illegal, but also constitute crimes against human sanity. As the public well knows, previous efforts to regulate these annoying calls over the years have achieved only limited success–and now the FTC is seeking help wherever it may be found.

David Vladeck, director of the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection, explains: “The FTC is attacking illegal robo-calls on all fronts, and one of the things that we can do as a government agency is to tap into the genius and technical expertise among the public.”

The search runs from October 25 to January 17, and applicants must find ways to stop robo-calls on landlines, cell phones, or both (which will result in a higher score). Of course, the subsequent media attention will then catapult the winner into the cultural stratosphere, where they will forever live as an icon to everything that is good in the universe. (So get busy people!) continued…

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The New York Times‘ Stuart Elliott looks into a new campaign from the Bureau of Consumer Protection of the Federal Trade Commission, which will teach children:

…how advertising works so they can make better, more informed choices when they shop or when they ask parents to shop on their behalf.

Omnicom-owned Fleishman-Hillard is supporting the bureau on the campaign.

Elliott wondered if having a firm owned by a large marketing services company teaching kids about advertising represented a conflict.

David Vladeck, director of the bureau disagreed, and stated about Fleishman, “They also know the tricks of the trade…We’re tapping into their expertise.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.