WE CAN SPAM BUT YOU CAN’T SPEAK: CTIA Claims Wireless Carriers Should Be Able to Text Consumers Without Consent–While it Tries to Censor Everyone Else

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Its funny.

If you study history deeply enough you’ll learn that morality is almost completely relative.

Anything you can think of (no matter how vile by today’s standards) has been permitted/encouraged/justified by some people somewhere at sometime throughout history it seems except for one thing– hypocrisy.

Holding yourself to the same standards you would apply to others is the only actual “golden rule” it would seem. And it looks like CTIA just broke it.

So the Wireless Association–which calls itself CTIA for some reason– publishes a set of “guidelines” for communications to cell phones that it claims nobody is actually required to follow yet every carrier and aggregator requires people to follow.

But in true “do as I say not as I do” fashion CTIA is claiming that its own members– the wireless carriers themselves– don’t have to follow any of those rules at all.

Indeed in a new filing made by CTIA to the FCC as part of the “Delete, Delete, Delete” proceeding the CTIA urges the FCC to close a proceeding that would require wireless carriers to have consent to contact consumers.

In the CTIA’s mind requiring wireless carriers to have consent before texting consumers would be “UNNECESSARY, OVERLY COMPLEX, OR EXCEED FCC AUTHORITY.”

Instead it urges the Commission to “exclud[e] calls and texts from wireless providers to their subscribers” from TCPA coverage. Indeed, applying the TCPA to by wireless carriers “would risk harming consumers” the CTIA claims.

Hmmm……

So preventing wireless carriers from spamming consumers causes “harm” but blocking urgent, consented, informational messages consumers actually asked for– which the CTIA guidelines and carrier terms of use call for– is totally cool?

Ridiculous.

The wireless carriers are trying to right themselves a blank check to spam people while holding speech by American business hostage to an outright censorship regime.

Just gross folks.

Hopefully the Commission acts promptly to ban carrier call blocking of lawful traffic as R.E.A.C.H. requests and hopefully the FCC also APPLY THE TCPA TO WIRELESS CARRIERS so we can stop a MAJOR source of spam calls and messages.

Also Telnyx CEO David Cassem just agreed to speak at Law Conference of Champions. Is he too polarizing? What do you think.

Chat soon.

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Published by Eric "Czar" Troutman

The Czar of TCPAWorld Eric Troutman is one of the country’s prominent class action defense lawyers and is nationally recognized in Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) litigation and compliance. He has served as lead defense counsel in more than 70 national TCPA class actions and has litigated nearly a thousand individual TCPA cases in his role as national strategic litigation counsel for major banks and finance companies. He also helps industry participants build TCPA-compliant processes, policies, and systems. Eric has built a national litigation practice based upon deep experience, rigorous analysis and extraordinary responsiveness. Eric and his team feel equally at home litigating multibillion dollar telecommunications class actions in federal court as they do developing and executing national litigation strategies for institutions facing an onslaught of individual TCPA matters. They thrive in each of these roles – delivering consistently excellent results – while never losing sight of the client experience. While many firms now tout TCPA expertise, Eric has been there from the beginning. He built one of the country’s first TCPA-only defense teams and began serving as national TCPA counsel for his clients nearly a decade ago. This perspective allows him to swiftly develop the right litigation strategies for dealing with recurring problems, without wasting time on tactics that are bound to fail. Eric’s rich historical perspective and encyclopedic knowledge of the TCPA landscape also make him an invaluable resource to institutional compliance teams struggling to comply with the shifting regulatory landscape. No task is too small – or too big. Indeed, Eric and his team have helped build TCPA-compliant systems and processes for some of the largest and most complex corporate entities in the country. He commonly works with in-house compliance counsel to build and implement enterprise and business-line specific TCPA solutions, performs TCPA audits and drafts and reviews proposed TCPA policies and procedures. He and his team also have the technical expertise necessary to assist call centers seeking to develop TCPA-resistant call path architecture or to modify existing telephony and software integration to better insulate from potential TCPA exposure. Eric has built a reputation for thought leadership. An avid blogger and speaker, he has been at the forefront of the industry’s effort to push for clarity and a return to sanity for the TCPA for years. He was selected to advocate for the financial services industry on important TCPA issues before the Federal Communications Commission and co-authored the nation’s only comprehensive practice guide on TCPA defense. In his spare time, Eric leads defense teams representing banks and other financial services companies in consumer finance litigation matters. He has experience representing clients in UCC, TILA, RESPA FCRA, CCRA, CLRA, FDCPA, RFDCPA and FCCPA claims, as well as in fraud and bank operations issues.

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