On Thursday May 23rd, 2019, the Senate approved the TRACED Act which will dramatically increase fines for illegal robocalls. The bill passed with an overwhelming 97-1 vote. Only a single vote from Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) was against the legislation. The TRACED Act’s next stop is the House of Representatives.
The TRACED Act (Telephone Robocall Abuse Criminal Enforcement and Deterrence Act) was sponsored by Senators John Thune (R-SD), Ed Markey (D-MA), and Roger Wicker (R-MS). Its purpose is to combat robocalls with stronger deterrents.
On May 15, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) submitted a proposal that would allow phone carriers to block unwanted robocalls to their customers by default. Most phone service providers offer call-blocking as an opt-in service, but this new initiative would allow robocall blocking by phone carriers without opt-in.
A Wisconsin court issued a ruling this month that could result in more TCPA lawsuits against automated calling and texting platform providers. In the court’s ruling on Cunningham v.
The FCC (Federal Communications Commission) Chairman Ajit Pai announced that he will host a summit on July 11th, 2019 to examine telco companies progress in implementing the SHAKEN (Signature-based Handling of Asserted information using toKENs) and STIR (Secure Telephony Identity Revisited) caller ID authentication standards.
