Attorney General Taylor Urges FCC to Clarify Rules on Consent for Telemarketing Robocalls and Texts

Attorney General Treg Taylor | Attorney General Treg Taylor Official Website

By Last Frontier News Report

Jun 12, 2023

(Anchorage, AK) – On June 7, 2023, Alaska Attorney General Treg Taylor joined a coalition of 28 states in demanding the Federal Communications Commission take stronger steps to stop illegal robocalls and robotexts.

In a letter to the FCC, Taylor and 27 Attorneys General ask the FCC to issue a rule stating that when a company seeks your permission to contact you in an email or on a webpage, the company cannot use fine print or links in a click box to simultaneously obtain your permission to be contacted by various affiliates, partners, and other companies that you don’t want to receive calls from. The letter also asks the FCC to require telephone providers to take new steps to block illegal robotext messages.

"The FCC is on the right track to close the lead generator loophole," said Attorney General Taylor. "But telemarketers must be reined in with clear rules so that consumers only get the calls and texts they actually signed up for."

The comment letter was filed on June 6 in response to the FCC notice of proposed rulemaking. In the notice, the FCC sought comment on a proposed amendment to its rule concerning prior express written consent under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA), as well as proposals to strengthen protections against illegal text messages.

The FCC is proposing to amend its rule concerning consent to close a so-called "lead generator loophole." As stated in the letter, lead generators are entities that collect personal information (like telephone numbers) from consumers and sell it to third parties, who then use that information to solicit consumers to purchase goods or services. A common lead generation practice is to offer to give the consumer a quote for a good or service online (like insurance products), and in order to receive the quote, the consumer has to agree to receive calls and/or texts from the lead generator’s marketing partners, which often include thousands of different businesses offering numerous different goods or services. If these separate businesses are identified anywhere, it is usually on a separate webpage only accessible via a hyperlink.

The FCC’s proposed amendment adds language to the existing rule to allow a consumer to consent to robocalls and texts from multiple entities, provided the entities are "logically and topically associated" and are all listed on the webpage where the consumer provides consent.

A robocall is a phone call that uses a computerized autodialer to deliver a prerecorded message as if from a robot. A robotext is an automated spam message that can be sent out to thousands of numbers at a time.

Joining in the letter with Alaska are Attorneys General from Alabama, Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Washington D.C., Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, New Jersey, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, Wisconsin, and Wyoming. A copy of the letter can be found here.