An appeals court threw out part of a Federal Communications Commission regulation aimed at reducing automated telephone solicitations, weakening a 2015 effort to squelch the scourge of so-called robocalls.
The rule was aimed at calls generated by auto-dialing devices. But its language was too broad, and could be construed to prohibit calls from any smartphone, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled in a unanimous opinion Friday.
[...] Unwanted calls, including robocalls, are the top consumer complaint to the FCC, with more than 200,000 such comments received annually, according to the agency. Some private analyses estimate that U.S. consumers received about 2.4 billion robocalls per month in 2016.
[...] Because under the FCC's rule "any uninvited call or message from the device is a statutory violation," regular smartphone users could face a $500 penalty for calls -- such as inviting a person to a party -- without first getting consent to contact them, the judges said.
-- submitted from IRC
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Saturday March 17 2018, @05:06PM
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