Bargain Basement Robocall-Blocking Approach a Concern, USTelecom Says
Despite calls for carriers to provide robocall-blocking tools for free, it would be a bad outcome if every carrier opted for the same, cheap option instead of employing a variety of them, said Patrick Halley, USTelecom senior vice president-advocacy and regulatory affairs, at an FCBA robocalls CLE Monday. "Carriers face legitimate costs." He said noted secure handling of asserted information using tokens (Shaken) and secure telephone identity revisited (Stir) implementation will be expensive for some carriers. Call-blocking tools' costs came up repeatedly at last week's FCC commissioners' meeting (see 1906060056). And Commissioner Geoffrey Starks on Monday wrote 14 providers seeking details on their plans to offer free, default call blocking services to consumers (see 1906100025).
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Expectations for Shaken/Stir need to be realistic, Halley said. “It's going to be one tool of many.” It will give confidence a call isn’t from a non-spoofed number, but it doesn't tell who is making the call. It will accelerate the traceback process, “but there are some limitations," he said.
On illegal vs. merely unwanted calls, the Senate in passing the Telephone Robocall Abuse Criminal Enforcement and Deterrence (Traced) Act (S-151) last month (see 1905230048) focused on illegal ones, but unwanted is a far larger group with a lot of overlap, said Dan Ball, deputy policy director of the Senate Commerce Committee. He said the ideal approach for unwanted calls involves empowering consumers.
FCC Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau Deputy Chief Mark Stone said determining the legality of a call under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) can be complex. He said the agency traditionally focused on illegal calls, but last week's robocall declaratory ruling was more aimed at empowering consumers on unwanted calls, reflecting widespread discontent with robocalls. Stone said the agency is sensitive to over-blocking of legitimate calls. FTC Assistant Director-Division of Marketing Practices Will Maxson said a challenge for determining the legality of a call can also be complicated because the agency's telemarketing sales rule and TCPA don’t always match up, and some state laws are broader than federal laws.
The FCC is concerned about a backlash from consumers expecting robocalls to disappear, Stone said. He said consumer education should be key. Robocallers “are going to find ways of getting around it,” said AT&T Assistant Vice President-External Affairs/Regulatory Linda Vanderloop. “We need to manage [consumers’] expectations.”
Vanderloop said calls originating internationally are a challenge, but those calls can be managed if they can be traced to a particular U.S. carrier. She said Canada also wants to implement Shaken/Stir and the U.S. needs to urge its adoption internationally.
The TCPA's one-year statute of limitations is a challenge when going after illegal robocalls, but a bigger one is the law’s citation requirement that first strike receives a warning, said Kristi Thompson, FCC Enforcement Bureau Telecommunications Consumers Division chief. Kevin Rupy of Wiley Rein said many companies have deployed consumer tools that will block or label calls, and last week's FCC call-blocking action “was a significant step forward" in enforcement.
Chairman Ajit Pai's letters last fall to providers not taking part in traceback programs (see 1811060042) triggered more cooperation with the USTelecom-led program, said Rupy, who then was USTelecom vice president-law and policy. "Before those letters, we were getting a lot of '[go] pound sand.'" That type of messaging from the FCC is "extremely powerful," he said. The agency is a big fan of the traceback program, Thompson said.
Maxson said the FTC gets about 15,000 robocall or Do Not Call registry complaints daily -- “ample ground to find lots of targets" for investigation. He said investigators look for spikes and patterns with an eye toward trying to find U.S. defendants since judgments against foreign actors generally are less enforceable. Thompson said robocalls often come in phases -- the “your Social Security number has been compromised” scam is dominant now, replacing the “you owe money to the IRS” calls, and before that loan relief and debt relief scams. Auto warranty scams are perpetual, she said.
Asked about the fine amounts the FCC has brought in enforcement actions, Thompson said Congress has been clear that it wants to see high penalties “and we’re happy to do the will of the people.” She said unlike FTC, the FCC doesn’t collect in its own name but goes through DOJ.