Earlier this month, Maryland Governor Wes Moore signed the Stop the Spam Calls Act of 2023 into law, bringing new telemarketing regulations to the state. The law is mostly intended to prevent deceptive spoofing and unconsented marketing calls.
The law’s main provision is a prohibition against using a prerecord voice or automated system to make telephone solicitation calls without the prior express written consent of the called party. For the most part, the relevant definitions are identical to those found in federal regulations with one key exception: the autodialer definition. The law defines the relevant technology an “automated system for the selection or dialing of telephone numbers.” This is the same broad, vague definition that Florida is in the process of amending in their own state law. It is distinctly possible that this vague definition will be as widely applied in Maryland as it has been in Florida and Oklahoma.
The law’s other provisions follow other state level trends and include the following:
- Restricting calling hours to between 8:00am and 8:00pm in the called party’s time zone
- Prohibitions against spoofing, preventing caller ID information from being transmitted, and changing caller ID information for the purposes of fraud
- A limit of three calls or text messages per 24 hours about the same subject to the same called party
Violations of these rules constitute a violation of the Maryland Consumer Protection Act and can be enforced by the state’s Consumer Protection Division, Maryland’s Attorney General, or any person injured by a violation. The law takes effect on January 1, 2023.