From CNN: The FCC is cracking down on ‘auto warranty’ robocalls
Washington (CNN Business) – US telecom providers will now be required to block millions of illegal robocalls a day advertising extended vehicle warranties, the Federal Communications Commission said Thursday, taking aim at a group of individuals accused of sending more than 8 billion such messages since 2018.
Thursday’s order by the FCC requires voice providers to stop carrying calls the agency has linked to 13 individuals and six companies, mostly based in Texas and California but also in such far-flung places as Hungary.
ABOUT FREAKIN TIMEReport
So much for freedom of speech.Report
What gets me is the whole “linked to 13 individuals and six companies”.
Why are these 13 individuals still walking around free? Why do these six companies still have unfrozen assets?Report
Why do you hate free speech and the free market?Report
Because now it’s allowing 13 individuals to partake in it in addition to the six companies.Report
I’m joking here but I am genuinely curious how exactly you outlaw this when I see a pretty easy argument to make that it is a form of protected speech. Further, I wonder how you write the law in such a way that doesn’t ban a whole host of things we don’t want banned.Report
Eh, the “No Call List” exists. Legislation was passed and everything.
You wanna sign up? Click here!
https://www.donotcall.gov/
You have to opt-in to the list, of course. But it doesn’t matter. We got so many calls on our house phone (that we opted-out of!) that we finally went cell phones only.
People calling us about our warranty.
People calling us and having caller ID show that they were from one of the military bases here in town and, nope!, they were robocalls calling us about this or that or the other.
We got a call explaining that our Amazon account had been hacked.
Anyway, I think it’s pretty easy to write legislation against spammy scammy robocalls without stepping on the toes of legit people whose job it is to call you with a household survey, then ask for permission to call you back, then tell you that you won a prize for answering the household survey IT’S A FREE VISIT TO A TIMESHARE SPEECH!!!Report
“I’m joking here but I am genuinely curious how exactly you outlaw this when I see a pretty easy argument to make that it is a form of protected speech.”
The FTC has existed for more than a hundred years and it was established specifically to regulate advertising so I think we’ve pretty firmly established the precedent that advertising is not a protected class of speech.Report
I also see that the law doesn’t target the originators of the calls directly but on the telecom companies. So it is less of a “law” and more of a “regulation”. Which seems smarter… these guys don’t care about what laws they’re breaking.
It is less of a “Here is what you are allowed to do with you’re phone and what you’re not allowed to do” and more of a “Telephone version of the no-fly list.”
Which feels better.
Though, you do have to hope that the power to mandate telecom companies block your phone calls doesn’t get abused by anyone. Would it be inconceivable that a President Trump 2.0 puts Democratic fundraising groups on the “MUST BLOCK” list? Hm…Report
FINALLY. Honestly they should take their autodialers and drop them into the ocean to create an artificial reef. And then go after the OTHER people who don’t abide by the Do Not Call list.Report
Word to that. I joked before that if Biden could make the auto warrantee robocalls end, he’d get re-elected in a landslide. This may be just what the Democrats need to blunt the damage of cruddy mid-terms, if only they have the guts to actually tout their own success!Report
Little known fact by the public at large is that you can sue the originators of these calls under the TCPA for statutory damages in state courts. My assumption has always been that the things are coming from offshore somewhere. Otherwise the class action bar would have nipped them long ago.Report
The people who put these together are very, very good at making the calls untraceable: anonymous hops across the internet, cracked PBX systems for inserting calls into the regular phone network, well-forged originating numbers. As of a few years ago, the FCC was offering a handsome reward for tech that would enable them to trace the calls.Report
I’m less surprised that they can’t trace the calls than that they can’t trace the money.Report
They sell the name, credit card number, security code, and zip code to someone else who has the completely different criminal infrastructure necessary to make money from those.
Good counterfeiters don’t try to pass their product directly, either.Report
Now, what can be done about the mail i get telling my my home warranty “may have or may shortly expire”?
I will say this: I can’t say how many fake calls I get….I don’t answer the phone for calls that are not in my contacts. If it’s important, they will leave a message.Report
This is the kind of thing that people ought to be using as arguments against libertarian philosophy. “You’d let schoolgirls be crack whores” is delightfully saucy, but “you say the market will fix things, but what do you expect the market to do when fixing something costs more than the money they’re losing by leaving it broken” is likely to get a more useful change in your antagonist’s thinking…Report
Libertarianism is dead. Died with Trump.
It’s a handful of nuts now who don’t know how to stop having read books or listened to music before the internet existed.Report
I recall some libertarians objecting to the Do Not Call list as government interference with commerce. But IIRC it wasn’t a majority view.Report
The fact that no-call was opt-in squashed all but the craziest.Report