Indiana’s recently enacted HB 1123 is set to take effect July 1, 2019, and any business making calls to Indiana residents should take note of its drastic changes. The new law brings with it sweeping revisions to the scope of telemarketing regulation and severe penalties for violations of its requirements. Previously, Indiana’s telemarketing laws required a limited number of sellers [...]
On June 20, 2019, the House Energy and Commerce Committee introduced a revised version of the “Stopping Bad Robocalls Act”. The Act was originally introduced in 2018 and re-introduced in February 2019 after Representative Pallone (D-NJ) became Chair of the Committee. This revised version follows in the wake of the Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC) decision to allow telephone providers to [...]
“Plaintiff’s TCPA claim fails as a matter of law because plaintiff does not allege that the text messages she received were sent using equipment which has the capacity to store or produce numbers to be called using a random or sequential number generator.” In a decision issued Friday in the case of Snow v. GE, the Eastern District of North [...]
In April 2019, the Fourth Circuit held that the government debt collection exemption, found within the 2015 amendments to the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (“TCPA”), violates the First Amendment but that the remaining restrictions on automatic telephone dialing systems (“ATDS”) should stay in place. The Ninth Circuit recently agreed in Duguid v. Facebook, Inc. The plaintiff, Duguid, was not a [...]
The Federal Communications Commission (“FCC”) voted yesterday to allow telecom carriers to “block by default” illegal or unwanted calls to their subscribers. FCC Chairman Ajit Pai released the proposed Declaratory Ruling in May. Carriers already block calls to subscribers that opt-in to a blocking service. This Ruling will now allow carriers to block by default, regardless of whether a consumer [...]
Serving as General Counsel to the Professional Association for Customer Engagement (“PACE”), M&S filed a letter this week with the Federal Communications Commission (“FCC”) regarding its recently released Declaratory Ruling and Third Further Notice of Proposed Rulemaking. If implemented, the Ruling would allow phone companies to automatically block robocalls to their customers, and would also create a safe harbor for [...]
The U.S. Senate passed S. 151, the Telephone Robocall Abuse Criminal Enforcement and Deterrence Act or “TRACED” Act, yesterday in a 99-1 vote. A House companion bill (H.R. 1602), sponsored by U.S. Rep. David Kustoff, R-Tenn., is currently pending in the House Energy and Commerce Committee. A summary of the TRACED Act: Gives the Federal Communication Commission (“FCC”) enhanced enforcement [...]
Lead generation is a marketing activity that involves identifying and generating consumer interest in a product or service. Online lead generation has become commonplace, allowing a consumer to research products and services and connect with companies to fulfill their specific need. Done properly, lead generation is an efficient tool and has significant customer benefits. Done wrong, it can be a [...]
* UPDATED May 20, 2001: View the Declaratory Ruling and Third Further Notice of Proposed Rulemaking here. In a statement released earlier today, Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai announced plans for a bold declaratory ruling that would allow phone companies to block robocalls to their customers by default. Chairman Pai encouraged carriers, if the decision is adopted, “to begin providing [...]
The 2015 amendments to the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (“TCPA”) allowed calls to collect debts owed to or guaranteed by the federal government to be exempt from regulations on automatic telephone dialing systems (“ATDS”). A group of political organizations subsequently filed suit and alleged that the government debt collection rule violated the First Amendment’s free speech clause. Because it is [...]
