P2P Alliance Disputes Arguments of Critics
The P2P Alliance fired back at consumer and public interest groups that recently asked the FCC to deny the alliance’s petition for clarity that peer-to-peer text messages to cellphones aren't subject to Telephone Consumer Protection Act restrictions (see 1907120056). The…
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National Consumer Law Center led the filing. “More than a year after the filing window closed, NCLC submits its ex parte urging the Commission to reject the Petition, albeit without citing to any Commission precedent in support of its positions,” said the filing posted Wednesday in docket 02-278. “Contrary to NCLC’s assertions, P2P texting messaging platforms enable two-way text communications that require a person to manually send each message one at a time and involve significant discretion by the sender regarding the substance, timing, and recipients to whom the sender transmits a message.” The messages aren’t automated, the alliance said: “The many staff members and volunteers for non-profit and other groups who spend their valuable time engaging in meaningful, highly personal two-way conversations using P2P platforms would be rather surprised to learn about NCLC’s characterization of their efforts as ‘a miniscule and fictional element of human involvement for the sole purpose of evading the consumer protections of the TCPA.’” National Consumer Law Center Senior Attorney Margot Saunders told us P2P isn’t unique and the FCC shouldn’t treated it as such. “The law is that calls and texts sent in systems that have the capacity to send automated texts are covered,” she said: “You don’t look at exactly how each call and text is sent. … The FCC does not have before it sufficient information to evaluate those systems.”