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Phone companies and state attorneys general join forces to fight robocalls
US consumers receive as many as 350,000 unwanted calls every three minutes, according to the FCC. Despite multiple efforts to end the onslaught, an estimated 4.7 billion robocalls hit American phones in July alone. Now, attorneys general from all 50 states and the District of Columbia are teaming up with 12 carriers in a united effort to prevent and block the spam calls.
Under the new agreement, the carriers will implement call-blocking technology, make anti-robocall tools free to consumers and deploy a system that labels calls as legitimate or spam, The Washington Post reports. The companies also agree to aid investigations by law enforcement. The major players -- AT&T, Comcast, Sprint, T-Mobile and Verizon (Engadget's parent company) -- are on board, as well as smaller carriers -- Bandwidth, CenturyLink, Charter, Consolidated, Frontier, US Cellular and Windstream. Though, there's no deadline for the companies to implement these measures.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 24 2019, @06:41PM (1 child)
Yes, they are still exempt under these rules. For those who do not know, the following are exempt from robocall provisions:
Note that numbers 2-5 are required to state in the message how to discontinue receiving future calls. Number 2 has that and additional situations where you can terminate them. However, number 1 does not have to have an opt out of any kind and may be continued even after you tell them you don't want any.
(Score: 2) by Muad'Dave on Monday August 26 2019, @12:22PM
> US consumers receive as many as 350,000 unwanted calls every three minutes ...
What's the purpose of this new law again?