Today’s Regulatory Mix: Florida Amends Telephone Solicitation Laws, FCC Releases Second Report on Consumer Call Blocking Tools

 

 

Florida Amends Telephone Solicitation Laws 

Governor Ron DeSantis (R.) signed SB 1120 into law, amending Florida law concerning telemarketing. The new law, effective July 1: 

  • Requires all sales telephone calls, text messages, and direct-to-voicemail transmissions to have the prior express written consent (as defined in the amendment) of the receiving customer if the call is made using an automated dialing system or will play a recorded message on connection; 
  • Creates a rebuttable presumption that a sales call made to a Florida area code is made either to a Florida resident or to a person in the state at the time of the call; 
  • Creates a private cause of action for a violation of provisions governing telephone solicitations permitting injunctive relief and either actual damages or $500, whichever is greater, subject to trebled damages for a willful or knowing violation. 

The legislation also amends the unlawful acts and practices provisions of the Telemarketing Act by:  restricting the time period within which telephone solicitation calls may be made from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. (versus 9 p.m.) local time; prohibiting the placement of more than three calls to a person over a 24-hour period; prohibiting the use of technology that displays a different caller ID number than the originating number; making violating a misdemeanor; and clarifying that the timing and volume prohibitions apply to calls made through automated dialing or recorded messages. 

 


FCC Releases Second Report on Consumer Call Blocking Tools
 

The FCC announced that the second of two annual reports on robocall blocking have been released: “Call Blocking Tools Available to Consumers.”  The report, produced by the FCC’s Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau, found that many providers and third-party analytics companies offer improved call blocking and labeling services and use new data to continually update their analyses to detect robocalls.   

Acting FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel said “I’m encouraged to see the increasing availability of robocall blocking tools for consumers. Stopping robocall scammers from bombarding consumers and businesses takes a whole-of-network approach. Call blocking consumer tools are a critical part of this approach – along with STIR/SHAKEN implementation, network-level blocking, and ensuring gateway providers don’t let illegal robocall campaigns onto our networks. That said, we have to put consumers first, and it’s in everyone’s best interest to get these junk calls off our networks. I will continue to push industry under the law to make these tools free and easily available to the public.” 

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The Regulatory Mix, Inteserra’s blog of telecom related regulatory activities, is a snapshot of PUC, FCC, legislative, and occasionally court issues that our regulatory monitoring team uncovers each day. Depending on their significance, some items may be the subject of an Inteserra Briefing.

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