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The Telephone Consumer Protection Act, or TCPA, is apparently one tricky piece of legislation. On paper, it seems simple: it dictates the rules of conduct for telemarketing. And yet, in practice the TCPA is seemingly one of the most complicated -- or at least controversial -- collection of laws ever conceived. As usual, though, the reality lies somewhere between these two extreme points of view.

The real point of complication when it comes to the TCPA is how it limits the use of automated dialers, robocalling, and unsolicited messages, whether by text or fax. While charges of ‘auto-dialing’ often lead to fines against the company accused of the act, some companies are emerging victorious in court. It all comes down to interpretation of the TCPA.

Take an ongoing case between ACA International, an international trade association of third-party debt collection businesses, and the Federal Communications Commission (FCC (News - Alert)), for example. According to the latest update on the ACA International website regarding the case, the FCC is attempting to clarify its interpretation of the TCPA as part of its legal battle against ACA.

In the FCC’s recent answering brief with the United States Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, it appears the commission is looking to preserve its July 2015 Declaratory Ruling and Order on the Telephone Consumer Protection Act against ACA’s challenge. In particular, the FCC stated that recent congressional reforms to the TCPA, reforms that would allow the use of modern dialing technology for the collection of government-related debt, in fact support its interpretation of the act in the ACA case.

According to the FCC’s D.C. Circuit Court filing, “If Petitioners were correct that devices that can call any stored list of numbers (not just random or consecutive numbers) fall outside the TCPA’s auto-dialer restrictions, then there would have been no need to exempt debt-collection calls from the auto-dialer restrictions; debt collectors do not go about calling random or consecutive numbers hoping to stumble upon someone who owes them an overdue debt. Congress’s recent amendments to the TCPA thus confirm that Congress shares the FCC’s decade-old understanding that the TCPA’s auto-dialer restrictions apply to devices used to call a stored list of telephone numbers.”

ACA and other petitioners in the case, on the other hand, have accused the FCC of “abdicating its responsibility to clarify areas of uncertainty under the TCPA and muddying the already murky waters of the TCPA.” They go on to say that the FCC has gone far beyond Congress’ original intent when it redefined statutory terms and expanded the scope of the TCPA.

It’s a sticky situation, for sure, and it looks like it won’t be resolved for some time.