A trio of Democratic Senators have introduced a bill in Congress that would remove an exemption for telephone carriers from having to comply with the Federal Trade Commission Act and open them up to investigation for helping facilitate illegal robocalls.
The Protection From Robocalling Act of 2019, S.B. 2349, was introduced by Sen. Dianne Feinstein [D-Calif.] and co-sponsored by Sen. Richard Blumenthal [D-Conn.] and Sen. Amy Klobuchar [D-Minn.]. A text of the bill can be accessed by clicking here.
Known as the “common carrier exemption,” telecom carriers were originally exempted from being regulated by the FTC because they were regulated by other entities. But as those other entities have been rolled back, nothing has been left in their place to regulate the carriers, the Senators said.
“Our bill will close loopholes and empower an FTC crackdown on phone carriers who knowingly ignore billions of illegal and intrusive robocalls on their service lines,” Sen. Blumenthal said in a statement. “Phone service providers must be our first line of defense against the onslaught of robocalls that are often used by scammers and spammers to defraud unsuspecting consumers. The FTC to be able to hold these companies accountable for this onslaught of unwanted calls.”
If enacted, the Protection From Robocalling Act would give the FTC the authority to investigate telecom carriers to see if they are knowingly helping facilitate illegal robocalls.
Congress and federal regulators have been scrambling to enact rules and laws aimed at stemming the tide of robocall proliferation.
