This episode of ComplianceTalk rounds up a busy stretch of agency and court activity, touching on plenty more than just the FCC’s revocation rule and the Williams-Sonoma arbitration ruling.
On the regulatory side, the FTC has opened a new online portal where businesses can flag rules or statutes they see as conflicting or ambiguous, useful for issues like the tension between state data minimization laws and the FTC’s own extended record retention requirements. Michele and Chad also break down the FCC’s draft “revoke all” report and order, headed for a commissioner vote on September 30, which would move the effective date for its consent revocation rules up from the expected January 2027 deadline and change how revocation applies to informational versus marketing messages. The FCC is also floating a new robocall “scorecard” that would rate voice service providers on their mitigation compliance, along with a fresh look at who needs to file in the Robocall Mitigation Database.
On the case law side, they cover Ohio Telecom Association v. FCC, where telecom industry groups say the FCC didn’t have the legal authority to require this data breach notification rule, and that reissuing it broke the law Congress used to strike down the FCC’s related 2016 privacy rules. A three-judge panel on the Sixth Circuit sided with the FCC last August, but the full court agreed to rehear the case and threw out that ruling, with a new hearing set for October 21, 2026, an important test of how far the FCC’s rulemaking power really goes.
Rounding things out is O’Malley v. Williams-Sonoma, a California case where the court struck down an arbitration clause as unconscionable after the company used it to indefinitely delay mass arbitration claims over undisclosed checkout fees. It’s a good reminder to have your arbitration provisions reviewed by counsel before you need to rely on them.
