TCPAWorld reported that Enterprise Communications Advocacy Coalition
formally asked the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to “correct” an apparently unintentional expansion of prior express written consent requirements when the agency recently codified certain Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) exemptions for informational prerecorded or artificial voice calls to residential lines (https://tcpaworld.com/2021/03/21/formal-petition-to-correct-exemptions-consent-requirement/)
The FCC now has received a second formal request on the same issue. The Petition For Partial Reconsideration of ACA International, the Edison Electric Institute, the Cargo Airline Association, and the American Association of Healthcare Administrative Management (Petition for Reconsideration – TCPA Exemptions Order (3-29-2021).pdf)
includes the following four requests:
- “First, to ensure that consumers can continue to receive the important informational calls that they have requested and consented to receive about their utility service, financial accounts, package deliveries, and healthcare, the Commission should promptly issue an Erratum correcting its codification of 47 C.F.R. § 64.1200(a)(3), which as drafted would inadvertently require ‘prior express written consent’ for certain informational prerecorded calls placed to residential landlines.”
- “Second, the Commission should continue to recognize the different safety, physical and financial health, and other benefits to consumers of informational calls and reconsider its decision to extend its telemarketing opt-out requirements to certain informational prerecorded calls placed to residential landlines.”
- “Third, the Commission should revisit the one-size-fits-all limitation of three calls per 30 days for exempted prerecorded calls to residential landlines, along with certain limited elements of its exemption for package delivery communications to wireless numbers.”
- “Finally, to ensure that utility customers with a landline phone can continue to receive the same outage notifications, safety warnings, and other notifications that their neighbors with wireless phones will receive, the Commission should confirm that its past guidance regarding ‘prior express consent’ in the utilities context under the 2016 EEI Declaratory Ruling applies with equal force to calls placed to residential landlines.”
The FCC released a public notice on March 31 setting the deadlines for oppositions and replies to oppositions to both reconsideration petitions (https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/DOC-371233A1.pdf). Oppositions to the petitions must be filed within 15 days of the date of publication of the public notice in the Federal Register. Replies to an opposition must be filed within 10 days after the time for filing oppositions has expired.
TCPAWorld will provide an update as the process moves forward.