December 30, 2020 marks the one year anniversary of President Donald Trump signing the Pallone-Thune TRACED Act into law. The law, whose name is an acronym for Telephone Robocall Abuse Criminal Enforcement and Deterrence, is the first major federal telemarketing legislation in more than a decade.
The Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC) reassigned number database was supposed to be available sometime this year, after delays in 2019. With only 3 weeks left in the year, it appears unlikely that they will meet that deadline.
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) released the final version of a debt collection rule that was last seen in proposed form back in May 2019.
In December 2018, the FCC announced a plan to create a reassigned number database. Callers would be able to scrub their number lists against this database in order to remove any numbers that have been reassigned to new users, thus decreasing the possibility of incurring Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) violations by calling these new users.
The FCC's long awaited reassigned number database has officially become a final rule. In December of last year, the FCC announced its intention to create this database, which will, "contain the most recent permanent disconnection date for toll free numbers and for each number allocated to or ported to each provider that receives North American Numbering Plan U.S.
As part of their continued effort to reduce illegal robocalls, specifically to reassigned numbers, the FCC issued a new Notice of Proposed Rulemaking last week. The purpose of the Second Further Notice of Proposed Rulemaking is to seek comments on ways to address the reassigned numbers problem.
