Consumer Groups, State AGs Want FCC to Clamp Down on Robotexts
Consumer groups want the FCC to strengthen protections against unwanted robotexts, they said in reply comments posted Monday in docket 21-402. State attorneys general, filing as a group, also urged the FCC to clamp down on robotexts. In initial comments, most said the FCC shouldn’t impose new rules on text messaging similar to those in place for robocalls (see 2211140030).
Sign up for a free preview to unlock the rest of this article
Timely, relevant coverage of court proceedings and agency rulings involving tariffs, classification, valuation, origin and antidumping and countervailing duties. Each day, Trade Law Daily subscribers receive a daily headline email, in-depth PDF edition and access to all relevant documents via our trade law source document library and website.
“The steady escalation of complaints about unwanted texts, as well as mounting losses to consumers from scam texts, necessitate that more be done to protect consumers,” said consumer groups, led by the National Consumer Law Center and the Electronic Privacy Information Center. “Despite the clear need to do more, many commenters have instead urged the Commission to undo many of the current protections so that texters can send more texts uninhibited by the current limits imposed by the carriers,” they said.
If the commission fails to protect consumers, “text communications would unquestionably follow the sad path of voice calls -- people would no longer trust the mechanism and would no longer open and communicate by texts nearly as frequently as they do now,” consumer groups said: “Text messages that consumers want and need would be lost in a sea of unwanted messages.”
State AGs want the FCC to require mobile wireless providers “to block text messages at the network level, without consumer opt in or opt out, that purport to be from invalid, unallocated, or unused numbers, and from numbers on a [do not originate] list.” They urged the FCC to apply caller ID authentication requirements to text messages. “In 2020, scammers stole more than $86 million from consumers through fraudulent texting schemes,” the AGs said: “With scammers increasing their focus on text messaging schemes, consumer losses will also increase, unless industry and law enforcement work together to protect consumers.”
AT&T warned of “unintended consequences” from regulating texts. “There is no demonstrable reason for a change in course now,” AT&T said: “While we share the Commission’s antipathy for uninvited spam and scam texts and its desire to protect consumers, many parties explain that repurposing protections against robocalls in an effort to protect consumers against unlawful and unwanted texts would be ineffective and counter-productive.” Regulating messaging could curtail the flexibility “on which messaging providers have relied to devise protections that have kept messaging relatively spam-free when compared with voice or email,” the carrier said.
Twilio encouraged the FCC to look at what’s already underway before considering regulation. “There is no one-size-fits-all approach to preventing spam messages because each system and solution is different, but industry is deploying a spectrum of solutions that are protecting consumers -- including vetting high-volume message senders and sophisticated filtering tools,” Twilio said.
CTIA encouraged the FCC to take a cautious approach. A proposed blocking mandate “would be ineffective against spam text messages as they primarily originate from legitimate telephone numbers and not invalid, unused, or unallocated telephone numbers,” CTIA said: “The record also makes clear that existing anti-spoofing mechanisms, including wireless providers’ originating information authentication processes, are far more effective than a caller ID authentication solution would be. … Commenters agree that unwanted messages very rarely come from spoofed numbers and a STIR/SHAKEN-based caller ID authentication solution is unlikely to reduce spam text messages.”