Well the FCC had their chance to stay or trash the entire rule and they elected not to. So that means businesses all across the country need to comply with new TCPA revocation requirements effective RIGHT NOW.
The new revocation rules require the following:
So here are the key points of the new ruling:
- FCC makes “clear that consumers may revoke prior express consent for autodialed or prerecorded or artificial voice calls and autodialed texts in any reasonable manner that clearly expresses a desire not to receive further calls or text messages, and that callers may not infringe on that right by designating an exclusive means to revoke consent that precludes the use of any other reasonable method.” This appears to be a big big change from existing law that allows businesses to contract for consent that cannot be revoked and otherwise set reasonable revocation method by contract;
- FCC determines using the words “stop,” “quit,” “end,” “revoke,” “opt out,” “cancel,” or “unsubscribe” via reply text message constitutes a reasonable means to revoke consent–BUT “this does not preclude, however, the use of other words and phrases to revoke consent.” So… this is useless. Yippee;
- FCC requires companies to honor company-specific do-not-call and revocation-of consent requests as soon as practicable and no more than 10 business days after receipt of the request— this is a big GIFT for informational callers, who previously had to honor consent immediately. Cuts down timeframe for telemarketing callers, however, who previously had up to 30 days to comply. MUCH better than the 24 hours that was originally proposed. Notably the FCC credits REACH for arriving at the 10 business day time frame!!! (See fn 42);
- FCC rules texters can send one time post-revocation text seeking to clarify scope of revocation–but no response means opted out of everything. Not sure folks who have multiple layers of consent are going to take advantage of this. Especially since the text “must not contain any marketing or advertising content or seek to persuade the recipient to reconsider their opt-out decision.” hmmm
You can read the full ruling here: Draft FCC TCPA Order re Consent Revocation (DOC-400039A1)
The good news is that companies will NOT have to comply with the dreaded scope rules of the new ruling until April 11, 2026.
WOAH!!!!!: FCC Issues Stay of Worst Parts of TCPA Revocation Ruling (And TCPAWorld is Saved– Again)
The STAYED rules require companies to treat a “stop” as a request that the business stop all calls and texts across all channels and for all purposes that require the same level of consent, or less, as the stopped message. So if a consumer texts “stop” to an informational message all informational and marketing would need to end. And if a consumer texts “stop” to an exempted message then ALL messaging from the business would have to end.
These scope rules are INCREDIBLY difficult to comply with and I HIGHLY suggest enterprise start working on these things right now (Troutman Amin, LLP is here to help!)
But EVERYBODY needs to be complying with the new rules in effect today. The most challenging for many businesses is honoring imperfect or free-form stop requests via SMS. Please keep this in mind folks– the plaintiff’s bar will be all over it! Again, this portion of the rule is in effect today!!
Reach out if you have questions and we will be discussing these new rules at Law Conference of Champions III (live and virtually) in July!
See you there.