A catalog, defined

The part defines two terms together and defines them by a condition

Mail order catalog and mail order promotional material mean any materials used in the direct sale or direct offering for sale of any product or service, disseminated in print or by electronic means, soliciting purchase by mail, telephone, electronic mail, or some other method without examining the actual product purchased.

The defining clause is at the end and it is about the buyer

Without examining the actual product purchased. Not about the medium, not about the seller, not about the format. A catalog is a catalog because of what the buyer cannot do.

Which is a remarkably clean definition of the problem

Print or electronic, mail or telephone or electronic mail or some other method. The list of channels is deliberately open and the condition is fixed.

And the actual product is doing work in that phrase

A buyer may have examined a sample, a photograph or an identical item. The condition is that they have not examined the one they are buying, which is true of every catalog purchase ever made.

Then one sentence applies the rule to that setting

To the extent that any mail order catalog or promotional material includes a seal, mark, tag, or stamp labeling a product Made in the United States, such label must comply with the prohibition.

Seal, mark, tag or stamp is four kinds of graphic device

Which reaches the badge rather than the sentence. A flag graphic or a roundel reading Made in USA is a mark, and it carries the full three-part test behind it.

This is the third rule in this library that turns on the buyer not seeing the goods

And it is the one that defines the condition rather than reacting to it, which is why it is worth collecting the three together.

The care labeling rule reacts to a package in the way

If the product is packaged, displayed or folded so that customers cannot see or easily find the label, the care information must also appear on the outside of the package. The object is present and obstructed.

The jewelry guides react to there being no encounter at all

Where a product can be purchased without personally viewing it, disclosure should be made in the solicitation for, or description of, the product. The duty relocates into the copy.

And this rule defines that condition and names the channels

Three rules, one underlying fact about a buyer at a distance, and three different responses: duplicate the label, relocate the disclosure, or test the claim.

For a catalog of containers the practical consequence is small and real

Every figure on every page in this library is dated and attributed to the field it came from, because a description is all a reader has. That is a practice rather than a requirement, and this definition is why it matters.

References