FCC Enacts New Telephone Consumer Protection Act Rule

 In June the Federal Communication Commission enacted new rules based on 21 separate petitions for consideration.  The new rules provide:

•           Telephone service providers can offer robocall blocking technologies to consumers. 


•           Consumers now have the right to revoke their consent to receive calls and text messages sent from autodialers in any reasonable way at any time. 


•           To prevent consent for unwanted calls from a previous subscriber following a reassigned number, callers will be required to stop calling reassigned wireless and wired telephone numbers after a single call. 


•           The TCPA prohibits the use of automatic telephone dialing systems to call wireless phones and to leave prerecorded telemarketing messages on landlines without consent. “Automatic telephone dialing system” is defined as “equipment which has the capacity to (A) to store or produce telephone numbers to be called, using a random or sequential number generator; and (B) to dial such numbers.” The new rule clarifies this definition includes machines with a future capacity to dial randomly, sequentially and even from a list loaded into the dialer. Human intervention — like touch screen dialing button — is not sufficient to overcome ATDS status. 


•           Consent survives when a consumer ports his number from a landline to a wireless phone.


The new rule reaffirms many of the existing FCC and court interpretations of the TCPA:

•           Text messages are calls.


•           Consent must come from the called party, not the intended recipient of the call.


•           The FTC will continue to administer the National Do-Not-Call Registry to prevent unwanted telemarketing calls.


•           Wireless and home phone subscribers can continue to prevent telemarketing robocalls made without prior written consent.


•           Autodialed and prerecorded telemarketing and information calls and text messages to mobile phones will still require prior consent.


•          Political calls will still be subject to restrictions on prerecorded, artificial voice, and autodialed calls to wireless phones, but will continue to not be subject to the National Do-Not-Call Registry because they do not contain telephone solicitations.


•           Consumers will still have a private right of action for violations of the TCPA along with statutory penalties.


These new rules will significantly restrict business’s use of autodialing technologies. Of course, enforcement will be the key to carrying out their effect.

 

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