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The Better Business Bureau (BBB), founded in 1912, is an organization based in the United States and Canada. The BBB states its purpose is to act as a mutually trusted intermediary between consumers and businesses to resolve disputes, to facilitate communication, and to provide information on ethical business practices.The inception of the Better Business Bureau is credited to the court case initiated by the government against a number of firms, whose number included the Coca-Cola Company, in 1906, after the Pure Food and Drug Act had been written into law. As a result of the trial (the legal charges had been determined to be unfounded) Samuel C. Dobbs, sales manager of Coca-Cola Company and later its president, became committed to the cause of truth in advertising. During the trial, Coca-Cola’s own attorney had uttered a famous remark that confirmed Dobbs' desire to see honesty in business practices: "Why, all advertising is exaggerated," the lawyer had remarked. "Nobody really believes it." In 1909, Dobbs became president of the Associated Advertising Clubs of America (now AAF) and began to make speeches on the subject; in 1911, he was involved in the adoption of the “Ten Commandments of Advertising". Similar organizations in succeeding decades, such as the National Better Business Commission, Inc. of the Associated Advertising Clubs of the World (1921), and the National Association of Better Business Bureaus, Inc. (1933) merged to become in 1946 the Association of Better Business Bureaus, Inc. This association functioned until 1970 when it was merged into the Council of Better Business Bureaus.
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