On April 8, 2025, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) issued a ruling delaying the effective date for a narrow portion of the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) regulations enacted pursuant to the February 15, 2024 Revocation Order by one year. Specifically, the FCC ruled that "good cause exists to delay Section 64.1200(a)(10) to the extent that it requires callers to apply a request to revoke consent made in response to one type of message to all future robocalls and robotexts from that caller on unrelated matters." Delay Order at ¶ 8 (emphasis added). This portion of Section 64.1200(a)(10) is referred to as the "revoke all" provision. Delay Order at ¶ 6.
This ruling comes after several groups, including banking associations, financial institutions and a service provider catering to the health care industry, petitioned the FCC to delay this provision for one year due to the significant challenges in designing a system that can clarify the scope of revocation so that the institution does not apply a customer's revocation to a broader category of messages than the customer intended. The FCC agreed that "a limited delay is necessary to provide sufficient time for affected parties to process revocation requests received across different business units." Delay Order at ¶ 10.
The FCC also emphasized, however, that this delay extends only to Section 64.1200(a)(10) to the extent discussed in the ruling and does not otherwise delay the effective date of the revocation rules issued pursuant to the Revocation Order.
This means that, until April 11, 2026, a revocation request will not automatically be treated as opting a consumer out of all robocalls and robotexts from the caller on unrelated matters.
While the Order is not a model of clarity, it appears that the other aspects of Section 64.1200 (a)(10) are not impacted and will still become effective on April 11, 2025. These include:
- Recognizing that revocation may be made by "any reasonable method";
- Per se treatment of certain revocation methods, including opt-out key press mechanisms for artificial or prerecorded voice calls and identified text opt-out key words;
- One-way text protocol disclosure requirement;
- Timeframe of ten business days to honor a revocation request; and
- Prohibition on designating exclusive means to revoke consent.
Section 64.1200(a)(11) (rebuttal presumption of revocation for opt-outs received by means not identified in (a)(10)), set to go into effect April 11, 2025, and Section 64.1200(a)(12) (confirmatory clarifying message), already in effect, are also not delayed and will not be impacted by the FCC Delay Order.
To read the Delay Order, click here.
Why it matters
This one-year delay provides additional time for companies to implement systems that can process revocation requests consistent with the FCC's broad construction of revocation. In the meantime, we anticipate that courts will continue to look to consumer expectation and apply a totality of the circumstances analysis to construe the scope of a revocation, as they have done since the FCC's 2015 TCPA Omnibus Declaratory Ruling and Order.
The content of this article is intended to provide a general guide to the subject matter. Specialist advice should be sought about your specific circumstances.
