 The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) administers the 1977 landmark federal Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA), which established debt collection industry standards and depends on the industry self-regulating or "self-enforcing" the statute through "private action" as opposed to "government law enforcement".FDCPA protect consumers and ethical collectors.From 1999 to 2009, the "advent and growth of debt buying", that is "the purchasing, collecting, and reselling of debts in default" was considered to be the "most significant change" in the "debt collection business".