Today is the 30 year anniversary of President George H.W. Bush signing the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) into law. It is fitting that this anniversary is somewhat overlooked as, for the first two decades of its existence, the TCPA served its intended, modest purpose as a statute allowing individual consumers to bring lawsuits in… Continue reading 30 Years of the TCPA
Tag: Thought Leadership
Wrong Numbers Are a TCPA Risk
Wrong numbers sometimes take a backseat to reassigned numbers when discussing Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) risks. But they represent a similar sort of risk without counterbalancing features like the Reassigned Numbers Database (RND) and its associated safe harbor. Understanding why wrong numbers serve as a source of TCPA risk and implementing measures to mitigate that risk are essential parts of TCPA compliance.
Six Months After Facebook, the ATDS Landscape Begins to Take Shape
SCOTUS’s decision in Facebook v. Duguid was six months ago. Let’s look at how things stand.
Call Deliverability Is a Priority for Marketers in the STIR/SHAKEN Era
The Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) was signed into law in 1991—eons ago with regards to telecommunications technology. At the time that the law was drafted and passed, one of the primary regulatory concerns was the then-prevalent practice of sending junk faxes. Now, in the smartphone era, regulators are far more concerned with robocalls.
Protect Yourself From Florida’s Mini-TCPA
Florida’s new telemarketing regulations have created a more dangerous version of the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) down in the sunshine state and it is already ensnaring marketers. The first class action complaint was filed under the new law and it confirms what analysts most feared: TCPA-like penalties and a private right of action combined… Continue reading Protect Yourself From Florida’s Mini-TCPA
Telemarketing and the Cannabis Industry
The legality of the cannabis industry varies wildly from state to state, and even between localities within individual states. Many cannabis companies spend considerable time and resources navigating this confusing legal and regulatory landscape. However, they often fail to understand another risky, similarly complex legal infrastructure: the world of telemarketing regulations.
TCPA Litigation After Facebook v. Duguid
April began with the Supreme Court’s bombshell ruling in Facebook v. Duguid. At the close of the month, let’s examine the fallout of that decision. A brief recap of the Facebook decision: SCOTUS sided with Facebook, setting a nationwide precedent for the narrow interpretation of the Telephone Consumer Protection Act’s (TCPA) definition of an automatic… Continue reading TCPA Litigation After Facebook v. Duguid
TCPA for Text Messaging
In the world of marketing, different dialing methods carry different amounts of risk relating to potential Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) violations. Text messaging platforms are among the most widely used dialing methods and, thanks to constantly evolving court, the nature and extent of its risk is frequently changing.
The 11 States With State-Level DNC Lists
When the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) implemented the National Do Not Call (DNC) Registry in 2003, 32 states already managed their own DNC lists. In the ensuing years, most of those states chose to forgo the continued maintenance of state-specific lists and adopted the federal list. However, there remain 12 holdouts who continue to offer… Continue reading The 11 States With State-Level DNC Lists
TCPA Violations: What Constitutes Harm?
The Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) was signed into law in 1991. For perspective, that’s one year before the invention of SMS text messaging. Yet, this thirty-year-old piece of legislation remains the centerpiece of federal telemarketing regulation deep into the smartphone era. As a result, a significant portion of the responsibility for the evolution and clarification of regulatory efforts has been carried out through court opinion.