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The House and Senate finally agree on something: Robocalls – TechCrunch
In these times of political strife, it’s nice that despite our differences we can still band together as a nation in the face of a catastrophe that affects us all equally. I speak, of course, of robocalls, and it seems that the House and Senate have put their differences aside for the present in order to collaborate on a law combating this scourge.
[...] As often happens in Congress, two competing versions of the bill emerged to address this issue, and both passed in their respective chambers earlier this year. Now the leaders of the committees involved have announced an “agreement in principle” that will hopefully allow them to pass a unified version of the bill.
The “Pallone-Thune TRACED Act” owes its name to its primary sponsors — Rep. Pallone (D-NJ) and Sen. John Thune (R-SD) — and the earlier and superior acronym from the House act, Telephone Robocall Abuse Criminal Enforcement and Deterrence.
“Our agreement will require telephone carriers to verify calls and allow robocalls to be blocked in a consistent and transparent way, all at no extra charge to consumers. The agreement also gives the FCC and law enforcement the ability to quickly go after scammers,” said Rep. Pallone in a statement accompanying the news.
The bill text is expected to be finalized in a matter of days, and it will hopefully make it onto the legislative calendar in a hurry.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by dltaylor on Sunday November 17 2019, @01:07PM (5 children)
They are not going to come up with anything that would work, it is pure political posturing for next year's election.
In order to stop robocalls, they are would have to require not only that all calls are human initiated, but that the dialing human check the number against the "do not call" list There's no way that a computer program can check whether, or not, you have some existing business or personal relationship that would permit the call to be placed, but the dialing human can know (for example, someone in your family has just been admitted to hospital, and the hospital needs to call you, but the hospital's number would not be in any "white list" you could create). Further, there need to overwhelming consequences to the caller who violates the rules, and that will require that call history is kept end-to-end so a complaint can be made. A call initiator must be identifiable absolutely purely from the time that the ring came to the recipients phone.
There might need to be some sort of exception for things like automated appointment reminders.
I get 5 to 7 calls each day that are offers of some service or product, and not only are they distracting, these call can prevent useful calls that are important to me. I have a family member with significant health issues and need to attend to each call, whether I recognize the number, or not, in case it is about that.
BTW "human initiated" does not mean that a human pushed each number button, but when an autodialer or some assistance device is used, ii is at the specific direction of a human.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by NotSanguine on Sunday November 17 2019, @04:28PM (4 children)
Yes. Even "legitimate" robocalls are a pain in the ass and should be banned.
While there are some provisions WRT do-not-call, this bill focuses (mostly) on scam calls. Most importantly, it *requires* voice providers to validate the purported caller id of the call as coming from that source, block such calls if they don't, and provide such services to the recipient without charge.
Does it resolve every issue with robocalls? No. Not even close. But given the dysfunction [nationalmemo.com] we see (and this is nothing new), let's not let the perfect be the enemy of the good.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 3, Insightful) by JoeMerchant on Sunday November 17 2019, @06:50PM (3 children)
I feel like we've been subjected to an intentional upswing in robocall annoyances in the last few years, just so they can set the strawman ablaze just before November 2020...
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 17 2019, @07:01PM (2 children)
Let me get this straight. You believe that political operatives are running/bankrolling fraud scams in some sort of scheme to give the members of Congress a "win" to improve their standing in the eyes of voters?
Is that correct?
Damn! Give me some of what you're smoking, dude!
(Score: 2) by GlennC on Monday November 18 2019, @12:49AM (1 child)
Yes, it is correct. As for what we're smoking...it's called reality and observation.
Sorry folks...the world is bigger and more varied than you want it to be. Deal with it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 18 2019, @03:06AM
Okay. Let's start with observation. Which *specific* observed events provide evidence for such?
NB: Q conspiracy theory bullshit isn't observation. It's fantasy meant to convince the idiots and confuse the naive.
As for reality, please do expound on this. If nothing else, it should be amusing if not too tedious.