Antitrust Policy
Overview
The Trust & Safety Professional Association (TSPA) clearly and unequivocally supports the policy of competition served by the antitrust laws. This policy communicates TSPA’s uncompromising policy to comply strictly in all respects with those laws. TSPA staff, board members, volunteers and members are required to comply with this Antitrust Policy and the related guidelines. Questions should be directed to the TSPA Executive Director, who will consult with TSPA’s counsel as needed.
This policy does not constitute legal advice, and you should consult your own counsel if you have any questions.
TSPA is a membership association, and its mission is to support the global community of trust and safety professionals, whose role is to develop and enforce principles, policies, and processes that define acceptable behavior and content online and/or facilitated by digital technologies. TSPA supports trust and safety professionals by facilitating professional networking, hosting conferences and events, and developing educational programs and resources for trust and safety professionals to grow within their profession.
Through these functions, TSPA may bring together employees of industry competitors and other market participants. Since TSPA offers forums, activities, educational programming, and meetings for the purpose of sharing diverse opinions on trust and safety issues, it could be viewed by some as an opportunity for anti-competitive conduct. The discussions that occur within TSPA-related activities may make them vulnerable to antitrust scrutiny and can expose TSPA or its members to antitrust claims.
Antitrust Statement
TSPA has a policy of strict compliance with federal and state antitrust laws. TSPA does not play a role in the competitive decisions of its members or corporate supporters, nor does TSPA attempt to influence the trust and safety policies or operations of its corporate supporters. TSPA does not force corporate supporters or individual trust and safety professionals or their employers to adhere to uniform positions or standards espoused by TSPA. TSPA in no way attempts to encourage or sanction any particular business practice.
Under the antitrust laws, members are not allowed to discuss certain topics, as outlined below, with their employers’ or funders’ competitors in any TSPA venue, including during a TSPA meeting, scheduled sessions, side discussions, or online forums. TSPA members should avoid discussing such subjects when they are together with other industry members. If, after a meeting or event in which a participant becomes concerned about a topic that was discussed, immediately contact the TSPA Executive Director. Do not discuss the topic further with other participants.
Prohibited Activities
The following is a list of prohibited activities that are per se violations of antitrust laws. While at TSPA conferences, meetings, or events:
- DO NOT share non-public, confidential, competitively sensitive information with your competitors, including:
- Current or future pricing and discounts.
- Bid amounts and terms, including decisions whether to bid or not bid.
- Output or capacity levels.
- Limits on sales levels or sales of certain products to certain regions.
- Customers.
- Key contract or sale terms.
- Salaries and wages, or limitations on hiring a competitor’s employees.
- Strategic plans.
- Business expansion or contraction plans.
- Planned geographic growth.
- DO NOT discuss with competitors prices, fees or rates, or features that can impact (raise, lower, or stabilize) prices such as discounts, costs, salaries, terms and conditions of sale, warranties, or profit margins. Note that a price-fixing violation may be inferred from price-related discussions followed by parallel decisions on pricing by association members – even in the absence of an oral or written agreement.
- DO NOT agree with competitors as to uniform terms of sale, warranties, or contract provisions.
- DO NOT exchange data with competitors concerning wages paid, bonuses, fees, prices, production, sales, bids, costs, salaries, customer credit, or other business practices that can be viewed as anticompetitive or are not consistent with this policy unless the exchange is made pursuant to a well-considered plan that has been approved by TSPA’s Executive Director, who may engage TSPA’s legal counsel.
- DO NOT agree with competitors to divide up customers, markets, or territories.
- DO NOT agree with competitors not to deal with certain suppliers or others.
- DO NOT try to prevent a supplier from selling to your competitors.
- DO NOT agree with competitors on restrictions on production or other output.
- DO NOT agree to any association membership restrictions, standard-setting, certification, accreditation, or self-regulation programs, data sharing, joint ventures or lobbying efforts without discussing these with TSPA’s Executive Director.
- DO NOT engage in private side-meetings and conversations with your competitors that discuss anti-competitive topics, violate this policy, or can be viewed as violative of antitrust laws, as these could be viewed as illegal collusion.
- DO NOT share any documents containing non-public, competitor, or industry information at a TSPA meeting (for example, if a customer gives you a document that includes information about a competitor). If you receive such information, please contact the TSPA Executive Director.
Object To or Leave Antitrust Violating Discussions
Agreements between competitors to fix prices, alter output, allocate markets or customers, or rig bids is automatically illegal. If these topics, or any topics related to the prohibited activities listed above, come up during a meeting:
- Interrupt the meeting and suggest pausing the conversation until it can be vetted by the TSPA Executive Director.
- If, after vocally objecting, the conversation continues, state that you are leaving the meeting and ask that the minutes reflect your concern and departure.
- Promptly leave and immediately contact the TSPA Executive Director.
There may be times when it might not be feasible to immediately interrupt or leave a discussion because the discussion topic is less obvious or overt than the per se violations described above. If that happens:
- Avoid participating in the discussion.
- If you feel comfortable, suggest that the discussion be delayed until vetted by TSPA’s Executive Director.
- If the discussion continues, leave as soon as possible.
- Immediately contact the TSPA Executive Director.
In addition, if an inappropriate discussion arises during a side conversation in which you are involved:
- Insist that the conversation ends immediately.
- If it continues, announce your intent to leave because you believe the discussion violates antitrust laws.
- Leave and immediately contact the TSPA Executive Director.
Allowable Activities
Not all information exchanges with competitors are prohibited, and examples of allowable competitively benign or procompetitive activities are described below. If you are not certain about whether an activity is allowable, please talk to the TSPA Executive Director.
Allowable activities include:
- Collecting or making publicly available information about the industry, organizing it, and disseminating it to industry participants.
- Discussing setting industry standards that increase product interoperability, compatibility, or safety.
- Provide information on a public website that informs customers about a complicated industry.
- Lobbying efforts (although please note that TPSA does not lobby and will not ask its staff, board members or members to lobby).
- Coordinating collection and exchange of historical, aggregated industry data.
- Sharing non-strategic technical or scientific data that results in consumer benefits.
Appropriate Antitrust Activities
- In the event that TSPA formally brings together representatives of competitor companies, an agenda or a description of the purpose of the meeting will be circulated in advance, and meeting minutes, where applicable, shall properly reflect the actions taken at the meeting. Although TSPA has not held and does not foresee holding such meetings, events that include representatives of industry competitors should have written agendas or a description of the meeting’s purpose prepared and circulated in advance.
- Only TSPA staff, or those authorized to speak on behalf of TSPA, will send out written and electronic correspondence on behalf of TSPA. TSPA officers, directors, or others who do not have the authority to speak or act on behalf of TSPA shall not do so.
- Do seek advice from your own or your employer’s counsel or from TSPA’s Executive Director, who may engage TSPA’s legal counsel, if you have questions regarding the antitrust laws, TSPA’s antitrust policy, or your responsibilities under these laws. TSPA Counsel represents TSPA, not others, so seek your own counsel if necessary.
Conclusion
This Antitrust Policy applies to TSPA staff, board members, volunteers and members. Board members, volunteers, and members may work for companies that provide technology services online or they may be independent contractors engaged in trust and safety work. TSPA seeks to support the trust and safety industry as a whole and does not offer exclusive advantages or support to any one company over another. TSPA members do not have governance authority over TSPA. Membership with TSPA is paid by the individual or through their employer as part of their Corporate Supporter benefits from TSPA. Corporate Supporters are not members of TSPA nor do they have governance authority over TSPA.
Updated March 2025
