Abstract: When firm and consumer interests are not well-aligned, the resulting transactions are often lousy, whether one uses consumer autonomy or consumer welfare as the metric. With modern experimental and data analysis techniques, firms can run circles around the law’s current disclosure and design rules, yet regulators today are tied to slow, circumscribed responses. What should be added is a regulatory instrument that does three things. First, it should unite the interests of firms with the goals of regulators through performance standards for consumer comprehension and/or suitable consumer product use, thereby redirecting the creative potential of the private sector much as emissions standards do for pollution reduction. Second, the instrument should ground the law on actual consumer knowledge and behavior, rather than hypothesized conceptions of the “reasonable” consumer. Third, it should institutionalize a monitoring system that provides feedback used to improve both the marketplace and regulation in a virtuous cycle.