Consumer protection refers to the laws designed to aid retail consumers of goods and services that have been improperly manufactured, delivered, performed, handled, or described. Such laws provide the retail consumer with additional protections and remedies not generally provided to merchants and others who engage in business transactions, on the premise that the consumers do not enjoy a sufficient bargaining position with respect to the businessmen with whom they deal and therefore should not be strictly limited by the legal rules that govern recovery for damages among businessmen. The overarching goal is to protect individuals and the interest of the public in general from unfair and misleading activity in business and commerce (such as false advertising and deceptive trade practices) and scams perpetrated by criminals (such as identity theft and pyramid schemes) that harm a substantial number of consumers.
Clarksville is both the name of an unincorporated community and the name associated with District 5 in Howard County in the U.S. state of Maryland. The United States Census Bureau uses the district as a county subdivision for statistical purposes. The community is named for William Clark, a farmer who owned much of the land on which the community now lies. According to the Howard County Economic Development Authority, the community of Clarksville had a population of 16,593 as of 2007. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, Clarksville District 5 had a population of 56,239 in the 2000 census. The village of River Hill is contained within Clarksville, the newest addition to the planned community of Columbia. Clarksville's public schools, part of the Howard County public school system, are among the highest-ranked in the nation and often have significantly higher funding than competing private and charter schools. Some of the most expensive homes on the East Coast are located in or around the town, whose property values are among the highest in the country. The area is located southwest of Baltimore and north of Washington, D.C. , and many residents of Clarksville commute to work in one of these two cities or their close-in suburbs.