I guess it’s reference to the fact that the blog writer lives in London, so the US meaning of FTC doesn’t matter when a someone in Europe promotes a US service
Now I'm curious, how is it called in the UK? I tend to use "FTC" as the general term when I want to refer to a trade regulatory body in a country, as in "UK's FTC equivalent". I wasn't aware it is so obscure?
Probably the UK CMA (Competition and Markets Authority) which regulates competition/antitrust, mergers, national security acquisitions and the like.
Or there is a loosely defined locally-run thing called 'Trading Standards' which is done at the council ("municipality") level.
and for the record I am just being difficult and everyone in tech/mildly well read knows what the (U.S.) FTC is. My point is more that one country's rules don't always matter for the operations of domestic commerce in another amongst their own citizens.
We famously mock our own jusrisprudence - "if Parliament passes a law that it is illegal to smoke on the streets of Paris, then it is illegal to smoke on the streets in Paris", so even when hard legislation exists (4chan/Ofcom shitshow?) it is meaningless.
The only power that matters long term in the universe is sheer force and hard power, and it has always been that way.
It's pretty fair to assume someone on a USA site, run by an American company, that is a major VC firm based in San Francisco, in an article talking about moving away from another USA company that is located all of 2 miles away from ycombinator, and speaking english should be able to put 2 and 2 together when dealing with contextual information.
If they can't they probably should move to an international focused site.