Federal Trade Commission chairman Timothy Muris will retire this summer to return to George Mason University, where he was a professor of law and a former interim dean, the FTC announced late Tuesday.
President Bush has selected Deborah P. Majoras, a former deputy attorney with the Justice Department and an antitrust expert, to replace Muris. If approved by the Senate, Majoras would fill out the rest of Muris' term through 2008.
Muris took over as FTC chairman in June 2001. Though many marketers expected Muris, as a Republican appointee, to be friendly to business interests, he presided over what is considered a period of privacy activism at the FTC.
Muris was the driving force behind last year's launch of the national no-call list, which many direct marketers consider the most significant regulation placed on their industry in more than a decade. He also led efforts to intensify enforcement against fraud in the direct response industry, particularly against weight-loss and credit card scams.
Muris headed the implementation of the CAN-SPAM Act, though he and others at the FTC have expressed reservations about a proposed do-not-e-mail list.
Majoras was a deputy assistant attorney general at the Justice Department's antitrust division from 2001 to 2003. She played a key role in the department's settlement of its antitrust case against Microsoft in 2002. She is a partner with the international law firm Jones Day at its Washington office.
