The state legislatures began their 2020 sessions with a flurry of activity. The following is a recap of the teleservices bills that have been enacted from January 1 – March 31, 2020: Indiana When Indiana’s telemarketing registration was broadened in 2019, it created a large swath of registration requirements applicable to most businesses making calls from or into the state. [...]
A three-judge panel in the Seventh Circuit largely affirmed an Illinois federal court’s judgment finding Dish Network liable for forcing retailers to make 66 million unlawful telemarking calls to consumers. While the Seventh Circuit affirmed liability, it also found that the court undercalculated appropriate penalties when it required Dish to pay a $280 million penalty to the federal government, North [...]
This is a follow-up to our March 24, 2020 blog clarifying the FCC’s “Emergency Purpose” TCPA exception of COVID-19 messages. On March 25th, the FCC announced that it is creating a new Hospital Robocall Protection Group aimed at ensuring hospitals do not receive distracting robocalls during this time of crisis. At the same time, teleservices industry participants have been setting [...]
In a Declaratory Ruling Friday, the Federal Communications Commission (“FCC”) confirmed that COVID-19 related calls and text messages from public health officials serve an “emergency purpose” and as such are excluded from the prior express consent requirements of the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (“TCPA”). The declaratory ruling cites the immediate need for hospitals, health care providers, state and local officials, [...]
With ongoing implementation of the STIR/SHAKEN authentication framework, your business’s calls to consumers are at greater risk of being blocked. Here’s what you need to know and the steps you can take to prepare and protect your organization. What is STIR/SHAKEN? STIR/SHAKEN (Secure Telephone Identity Revisited/Signature-Based Handling of Asserted Information Using toKENs) is an industry-developed set of rules and procedures [...]
On Saturday, Governor Cuomo declared a state of emergency for the entirety of the State of New York in response to the ongoing threat from coronavirus. The state of emergency is scheduled to last through September 7, 2020, unless rescinded sooner. Under a new law passed late last year, unsolicited telemarketing calls are prohibited to New York residents under a [...]
Ohio AG Yost held a press conference to announce a new enforcement unit dedicated to combating the 2.2 billion robocalls battering Ohioans’ phones. The Robocall Enforcement Unit will take a multi-pronged approach to the problem by partnering with anti-robocall groups at the national level, investigating suspected violators, taking aggressive enforcement action, and seeking legislation to expand the State’s authority over [...]
Less than a month after the 11th Circuit adopted a narrow interpretation of automatic telephone dialing system (ATDS), the 7th Circuit followed suit. In Gadelhak v. AT&T Servs., the court analyzed four possible interpretations of ATDS but held that AT&T’s system is not an ATDS because it does not have the capacity to: (a) store telephone numbers using a random [...]
The FCC is currently seeking comments on the technical requirements for the Reassigned Number Database (“RND”) that was recently approved by the North American Numbering Council (“NANC”). The RND, which is being established by a 2018 order issued by the FCC, seeks to address issues surrounding unwanted calls to consumers with numbers reassigned from previous consumers. The RND seeks to [...]
This week, the Eleventh Circuit weighed in with a limited definition of an Automatic Telephone Dialing System (“ATDS”), further creating a circuit split on the issue following the D.C. Circuit’s ACA International ruling. The three judge panel ruled that a system must have the capacity to dial numbers randomly or sequentially to qualify as an ATDS, diverging from the Ninth [...]
