FCC adopts rule to protect consumers from unwanted telemarketing Robocalls and texts

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Wisconsin Attorney General Josh Kaul and a coalition of Attorneys General provided input to the Federal Communications Commission which has now amended a rule governing telemarketing communications.

Under the newly amended rule, individual businesses must obtain written consent from consumers before sending robotexts and making robocalls.

Under the prior rule, lead generating businesses misled consumers who believed they were consenting to a single company’s telecommunications, only to receive, sometimes, hundreds of unwanted calls and text messages from industry competitors, according to Kaul.

The FCC’s new rule requires “one-to-one consent,” which prevents lead generators from obtaining consent on behalf of multiple businesses or sellers.

Kaul recently joined a bipartisan coalition of 29 Attorneys General in filing a letter with the FCC in June, urging the commission to enact the one-to-one consent requirement.

“This new rule is another positive step in reducing the number of robocalls and robotexts that folks receive,” said Kaul.

“We must keep working to ensure that people aren’t being inundated with robocalls,” Kaul added.

According to Kaul, a common lead generation practice is to offer to give the consumer a quote for a good or service online (like insurance products), and in order to receive the quote, the consumer has to agree to receive calls and/or texts from the lead generator’s marketing partners. This often includes thousands of different businesses offering numerous different goods or services. Businesses are identified usually on a separate webpage only accessible via a hyperlink rather than listed outright.

According to the letter obtained by the Wisconsin Law Journal, the State joined the June letter, along with the Attorneys General of Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Washington D.C., Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, New Hampshire, New Jersey, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, and Wyoming.