Last month’s decision by the FCC (News - Alert) on the clarification of robocalls under the TCPA is receiving criticism for possible impacts on how and when customers consent to receiving communication from businesses they patronize.
The update states that companies must honor a customer's request to stop receiving calls at any time and cannot make more than one call to numbers that have been reassigned to different customers.
Complaints about violations of the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) are the FCC's most numerous. More than 215,000 complaints last year alone, the FCC has said. App developers and others have sought input on just what consumer protections square with the law.
The rulings allow for robocall-blocking technologies, as well as making it easier to get off a robocall list.
The basic premise of the TCPA is designed to (as the name states) protect the consumer who would be on the receiving end of marketing or soliciting phone calls. Many people know the “do not call” list, and it’s thanks to the TCPA that we have this.
The language of the TCPA extends beyond just cell numbers, and it states that “making any call…using any [ATDS] or an artificial or prerecorded voice…to any telephone number assigned to a paging service, cellular telephone service, specialized mobile radio service, or other radio common carrier service, or any service for which the called party is charged for the call” counts as a call
For legitimate businesses, it’s a little too gray as to how this is going to affect customers who have requested text alerts and so on, which can negatively affect how and when businesses market to customers.
“The Commission’s TCPA decision will hurt legitimate businesses seeking to provide consumers with the calls and text alerts that they have requested," said Mark Brennan, a partner at the law firm of Hogan Lovells US LLP, according to B&C.
Brennan also questioned the FCC's "clarification" of the term "autodialer," which he said is "completely contrary to the TCPA’s statutory language and Congress’s intent.”
Previous cases flooding courtroom chambers have made the FCC update what “implied consent” and “expressed consent” mean, as a U.S. judge previously said providing a cell number on an application is considered only “implied consent.”
Two years ago, it was because of the confusion and hefty fines doled out to call center operators that the FCC published a more updated interpretation of “prior express consent.” Consent now “must be obtained via a prior, written and signed agreement specifically stipulating the use of automated or pre-recorded calls and text messages via auto or predictive dialers.”
With the new order, it specifies that consumers who had previously consented to robocalls could withdraw that consent at any time and “through any reasonable means.”
Edited by Maurice Nagle