By directing voice service providers to deal with “unwanted calls” as part of its anti-robocall policies, the FCC seems to have moved well beyond addressing “illegal and spoofed robocalls.” The text of the FCC’s new “Call Blocking by Default” approach was released late on June 7, 2019, which, as we previously predicted, contains several changes to the draft version of the Declaratory Ruling and Third Further Proposed Rulemaking (the Third FNPRM). Depending upon your point of view, the Third FNPRM contains either a few hopeful signs that the FCC understands and is willing to address the practical effects of its highly consequential blocking edict, or troubling confirmation that it has little idea of what it has unleashed on businesses and consumers. Continue reading “The Next Round of the FCC’s “Call Blocking by Default” Approach Kicks off with a Further Notice of Proposed Rulemaking”
Qiusi Newcom
Articles by Qiusi Newcom:
FCC Adopts Controversial Declaratory Ruling Encouraging “Call Blocking By Default”
Voice service providers soon may dictate which calls will reach you. The FCC honed in on “unwanted calls” when it voted at its Open Meeting today to adopt a Declaratory Ruling and Third Further Proposed Rulemaking (the Third FNPRM) permitting voice service providers to implement “Call Blocking by Default.” We are awaiting and will report on the ruling and notice when it is released. Continue reading “FCC Adopts Controversial Declaratory Ruling Encouraging “Call Blocking By Default””
Federal Courts Continue to Split Over Whether They Have Personal Jurisdiction Over Claims Brought By Non-Forum Class Members Against Non-Forum Defendants
For years, the plaintiffs’ bar has crammed thousands of non-forum class members into a single action in order to more easily justify broader discovery requests, and to more quickly aggregate statutory damages. And many defendants and courts simply assumed that plaintiffs could do so. But that assumption was called into question by Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. v. Superior Court of California, a mass tort case in which the Supreme Court held that federal courts do not have specific personal jurisdiction over the nonresidents’ claims merely because resident plaintiffs “allegedly sustained the same injuries as did the nonresidents.” Continue reading “Federal Courts Continue to Split Over Whether They Have Personal Jurisdiction Over Claims Brought By Non-Forum Class Members Against Non-Forum Defendants”
Do B2C Telephone Communications Now Need to Win the Popularity Contest to Not Be Preemptively Blocked?
Businesses may dial large volumes of numbers daily for a variety of legitimate purposes. These calls now appear to have become swept up and conflated with illegal robocalls, with a number of undesirable consequences. Certainly policy makers at the FCC, in reacting to understandable concerns about fraudulent and illegal calling, have been introducing more and more opportunities for voice service and app providers to apply non-transparent, subjective standards to block calls, and further muddy the water for business callers. Continue reading “Do B2C Telephone Communications Now Need to Win the Popularity Contest to Not Be Preemptively Blocked?”
Seven Robocall-Related Bills Examined at the House Energy and Commerce Committee Hearing
The House Energy and Commerce Committee held a hearing entitled “Legislating to Stop the Onslaught of Annoying Robocalls” on April 30, 2019, that focused on seven bills pending before the Committee. While lawmakers and witnesses generally agreed that illegal and abusive robocalls are a problem, the fix or immediate solution in the form of new legislation was less clear.
Chairman Mike Doyle (D-PA) opened the hearing by summarizing the current state of pervasive robocalls and calling for voice service providers to make available call-blocking services to all customers free of charge. Rep. Greg Walden (R-OR) shared this sentiment, emphasizing the need for a bipartisan solution with wide support. As Walden observed, robocalling is a topic that comes up at every single town hall meeting held in recent months. Several bill sponsors made opening statements regarding their respective bills, which we summarize briefly below. Continue reading “Seven Robocall-Related Bills Examined at the House Energy and Commerce Committee Hearing”
FTC’s Decision Treating Soundboard Calls as Robocalls Remains Undisturbed. What Comes Next?
A two-year legal battle in the federal courts has come to an end, the Supreme Court announced last week. On April 15, 2019, it declined to review the Soundboard Association’s challenge to the legality of a Federal Trade Commission decision in 2016 that outbound telemarketing calls made through soundboard technology are robocalls.
Soundboard technology allows call center agents to interact and converse with consumers on a real-time basis using a combination of audio clips and the agent’s own voice. It may involve reading a pre-determined script, responding to queries and interjections from consumers by playing a pre-recorded audio clip, using “response keys” to generate common interactive conversational responses (such as “I understand,” “exactly,” “yeah,” or a recorded statement that the agent is a real person using audio clips to communicate with the consumer), or giving the consumer the option to speak with a live operator’s own voice for the duration of the call. It has been widely used by call centers in the last two decades. Continue reading “FTC’s Decision Treating Soundboard Calls as Robocalls Remains Undisturbed. What Comes Next?”
Comment Cycle Begins for the FCC’s Proposed Amendment to Truth in Caller ID Rules
Yesterday, the FCC’s adopted Proposed Rulemaking (“NPRM”) to amend its Truth in Caller ID Rules was published in the Federal Register, triggering the commenting period deadlines. We previously compared the adopted NPRM with the draft document here and provided an overview of the proposed key provisions here. Comments on this NPRM are due by Wednesday, April 3, 2019, and reply comments are due by Friday, May 3, 2019. Commenters should follow the filing instructions provided in paragraph 40 of the NPRM. Drinker Biddle’s TCPA team will continue to monitor this docket and related developments as they become available.
FCC First Report on Illegal Robocalls
On February 14, 2019, the FCC’s Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau released its first report on illegal robocalls (“the Robocall Report”) to address the “onslaught of unwanted calls that has led a lot of consumers to stop answering the phone altogether.” This report is compiled based on data points from more than forty comments submitted by voice service providers, trade associations, analytics companies, and consumers. The Robocall Report provided summary analysis on the following issues:
FCC Adopted Proposed Amendment to Truth in Caller ID Rules
Since Chairman Ajit Pai took office, combatting illegal robocalls and malicious spoofing has become the FCC’s top consumer protection priority. In anticipation of yesterday’s Open Commission Meeting, Chairman Pai issued another press release on Wednesday, calling for “a robust caller authentication system to combat illegal caller ID spoofing” and criticizing carriers that lacked commitment to deploy the SHAKEN/STIR framework by the end of 2019. Between Chairman Pai’s 2018 demands that the FCC make real progress in call authentication and yesterday’s Open Meeting to vote on its draft Proposed Rulemaking to amend existing Truth in Caller ID Rules, Chairman Pai solicited details from several large telecommunications carriers about their caller ID authentication plans. These carriers’ submissions are available here.
Continue reading “FCC Adopted Proposed Amendment to Truth in Caller ID Rules”
FCC Proposes to Amend Truth in Caller ID Rules at its January Open Meeting
The FCC has announced its intention to take another step in combatting fraudulent robocalls by amending its Truth in Caller ID rules to extend to communications originating from outside the United States, as well as expanding the scope of covered communications services to include text messages and additional voice services. Specifically, in anticipation of its scheduled January 30, 2019 Open Meeting, the FCC, just prior to its shutdown on January 3, 2019, released a draft Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, which would implement new FCC rules and definitions designed to deter malicious caller identification spoofing. The proposed rules are intended to update current FCC Truth in Caller ID rules to reflect Congress’ recent enactment of Section 503 of the RAY BAUM’S Act that modified section 227(e) of the Communications Act as well as to “expand and clarify the prohibition on misleading or inaccurate caller identification information.” Continue reading “FCC Proposes to Amend Truth in Caller ID Rules at its January Open Meeting”