On August 22, 2019, it was announced that 51 state attorneys general and 12 telecommunications service providers (AT&T, Bandwidth, CenturyLink, Charter, Comcast, Consolidated, Frontier, Sprint, T-Mobile, US Cellular, Verizon and Windstream) have collaborated to implement certain anti-robocalling principles intended to protect consumers from the growing scourge of illegal robocalls. In announcing this initiative, the state attorneys general highlighted the fact that robocalls are generally their number one source of consumer complaints. Working in partnership with the attorneys general, the telecommunications service providers have agreed to adopt eight anti-robocalling principles aimed at the prevention and enforcement of illegal calls.
What are the anti-robocalling principles?
The Anti-Robocalling Principles
The above-mentioned service providers have signed an agreement with the state attorneys general to incorporate the following anti-robocalling principles into their respective business practices:
- Providing customers with cost free technology to block certain designated callers and label calls as unwanted;
- Implementing measures to ensure that caller ID is accurate and not spoofed;
- Monitoring high-volume voice network traffic to identify patterns consistent with robocalling;
- Identifying parties that are robocalling or spoofing and taking appropriate action, which may include notifying law enforcement and other authorities;
- Confirming the identity of new commercial customers by collecting identifiable information, such as their physical business locations, states or countries of incorporation and federal tax IDs;
- Requiring telephone companies with which they contract to cooperate in traceback investigations by identifying upstream telecommunications providers;
- Complying in a timely fashion with traceback requests from law enforcement; and
- Communicating with state attorneys general about recognized scams and trends in illegal robocalling and notifying state attorneys general of any new scams that may be identified over time.
Enforcing the Anti-Robocalling Principles
It remains to be seen how this collaboration between state attorneys general and voice service providers will play out. Significantly, the agreement between the parties does not create any protection or liability for voice service providers for their compliance on the one hand, and violation on the other. Notwithstanding this initiative, telecommunications carriers will otherwise continue to be responsible for complying with applicable state and federal laws, rules and regulations. Please note that it may take some time before the effectiveness of the anti-robocalling principles can be quantified. As such, we will continue to monitor the success of the anti-robocalling principles and provide updates on important developments in the coming months.
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