In comments submitted to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), consumer advocacy groups are urging the FCC to take further action to address unwanted robocalls, which are increasingly relentless. To truly address the problem, the FCC should:
- Maintain privately enforceable and effective rules under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (“TCPA”) to ensure that all non-emergency robocalls and texts continue to require the consent of the person called, and to allow meaningful revocation of that consent;
- Require phone companies to implement caller ID authentication technology by a date certain, at no additional cost, and ensure that the technology is effective, with the ability to screen out all unverified calls;
- If there needs to be a system for challenging incorrectly blocked robocalls, ensure that it is guided by rules established by the FCC, and is paid for by those callers who seek to benefit from using it;
- Refrain from establishing universal “whitelists” until after effective caller ID authentication is fully implemented; and
- Require all phone providers to offer all of their customers free, optional call-filtering tools.