FTC to Provide Daily Data on Robocalls to Telecom Carriers

On August 1, 2017, the Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”) announced that it will start sharing the information that it receives from consumers regarding Do Not Call and robocall violations with telecommunications carriers and other industry participants that are implementing call-blocking solutions.

Under this new initiative, the FTC will send the phone numbers, dates, times and general subject matter (e.g., debt reduction, energy, warranties, home security, etc.) of such unwanted calls to the telecommunications providers on a daily basis.  Maureen K. Ohlhausen, the FTC’s Acting Chairman, said that “[s]haring the critical information from consumers’ unwanted call complaints to enable industry innovators to stop illegal robocalls is exactly the type of public-private partnership the FTC champions.”

In the FTC’s press release, the agency stated that “[e]very day American consumers report tens of thousands of illegal robocalls to the [FTC],” and that this “consumer complaint data is crucial because many of today’s call-blocking solutions rely on ‘blacklists’  ̶  databases of telephone numbers that have received significant consumer complaints  ̶  as one way to determine which calls should be blocked or flagged before they reach consumers’ phones.”

The full text of the FTC’s press release can be found at: https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/press-releases/2017/08/ftc-escalates-fight-against-illegal-robocalls-using-consumer?utm_source=govdelivery.