Attorney General William Tong joined a coalition of state attorneys general calling on the Federal Communications Commission to clarify the federal rules requiring telemarketers to obtain express written consent before contacting consumers.
That consent, the attorneys general say, must be between one consumer and one seller or business entity.
The reply comment was filed on June 6 in response to an FCC notice of proposed rule making. 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.
“I recently bought a cooler, and signed up for messages from the cooler maker, but that doesn’t mean I want ads for soda and ice, and certainly not for car loans. And it definitely should not mean I’ve agreed to be barraged by thousands of solicitations. For far too long, lead generator businesses have been allowed to bury fine print and stretch the definition of consent for the sake of profits. A consumer would never agree to thousands of pitches from businesses by checking one box on a website,” Attorney General Tong said in a release. “The FCC must make the law clear— any business that wants to make legal telemarketing calls and texts must obtain our individual prior express consent.”
The FCC is proposing to amend its rule concerning consent to close a so-called “lead generator loophole.”
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.
In their letter, the attorneys general support the FCC’s proposal to confirm that National Do Not Call Registry protections apply to text messages.
Stopping illegal robocalls is a top priority for Attorney General Tong. Connecticut is among 16 states on the executive committee spearheading the nationwide Anti-Robocall Litigation Task Force of 51 bipartisan attorneys general. This task force investigates and takes legal action against those responsible for routing significant volumes of illegal robocall traffic into and across the United States. Most recently, Attorney General Tong and the Task Force sued Avid Telecom and its owners for allegedly initiating and facilitating billions of illegal robocalls to millions of people. Other investigations by the Task Force remain active and ongoing.
Last week, the Connecticut General Assembly approved legislation backed by Attorney General Tong to strengthen Connecticut’s ability to fight obnoxious and intrusive robocalls. The legislation will modernize the state’s anti-robocall statutes to match new tactics and technology used to inundate Connecticut households with relentless, unwanted calls. Specifically, the proposal expands the statutes to cover text messages, bans “gateway” voice over internet protocol (VoIP) providers from facilitating overseas scammers’ access to the U.S. telecom networks, allows for enforcement action against calls received by Connecticut area codes regardless of where the calls originate, bars telemarketers from contacting Connecticut residents before 9 a.m. and after 8 p.m., strengthens disclosures that telemarketers must make, and clarifies protections provided by the Do Not Call List.
Joining Attorney General Tong in the letter are attorneys general from Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, 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.