It ’s a effectual gray area that some caller are already taking vantage of , but the FCC is currently decide if it need to make it officially satisfactory . Telemarketers and robocall service hope to take advantage of a loophole that would allow them to skip the call and just flood your voicemail inbox with messages .
https://gizmodo.com/shameless-fcc-votes-to-charge-ahead-on-plan-to-kill-the-1795335046
young services are extend “ ringless voice mail ” services that storm customers with voicemails without ever have a ring on their speech sound . The eld of telecommerce being an good strategy has lurch in recent years due to consumers leaving behind their landlines in favour of smartphones .
TheTelephone Consumer Protection Act of 1991made it illegal for services that use automated dialing and stilted or prerecord voices to touch mobile phone without first obtaining consent . One major reason for this is that consumers would endure the relate direction from their cellular service provider . But ringless voicemail companies likeAll About the Messagehave been leave messages in consumer ’s inboxes in defiance of the law because its operators consider that by skip the initial call they are lawfully cut through .
Now , All About the content ispetitioning the FCCto make the loophole officially recognized as an acceptable function . The petition reads in part , “ The act of depositing a voicemail on a voicemail service without dial a consumer ’ cellular telephone line does not lead in the kind of interruption to a consumer ’s life — dead air call , call in interrupting consumer at inconvenient meter or manner of speaking charges to consumer . ”
But critic think this will ruin inboxes and waste consumer ’s sentence . Margot Freeman Saunders , senior counsel at the National Consumer Law Center wrote in a dissentingletterto the FCC that this serve “ will in all likelihood overwhelm consumers ’ voicemail system and consumer will have no way to limit , control or stop these content . ” Even citizenry who ’ve add their name to the officialDo Not Call listare targets . Saunders write , “ We read the law to possibly not employ if they are not considered calls . ”
citizenry would n’t just have messages to insert a fortune to pull ahead a sail or to implement for a low pursuit rate credit card . Political electronic messaging , debt collector and anyone else who want to post an unsolicited telling would suddenly have free sovereignty to spam the hell out of your inbox . Have an significant body of work voicemail you ’ve been waiting on ? You ’ll have to listen to Trump explain that he needs donations to contend the bass nation first .
service like All About the Message would surely be all right with just subsist in a legal oblivion but its tactics have get to cause trouble . An auto dealer that it provided services for is being sued by someone in Florida who receive multiple voice mail messages . The company is asking to receive a waiver from any premature infractions if the FCC decide that the service is in violation of regulations .
The FCC is n’t commenting on the petition as long as it ’s under revue . No timeline is set for when a decision will be made , but the public isfree to commentat this clock time . Of course , there ’s no guarantee your comment wo n’t be crowd out bybots robo - commentingas we ’ve seen in the debate over final disinterest .
[ New York Times ]
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