FCC Confirms “Ringless Voicemails” Are Subject to the TCPA - JD Supra

On November 21, 2022, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) released an order concerning “ringless voicemails” and the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA).  In this ruling, the FCC confirmed that the transportation of “ringless voicemails” to wireless phones represent a “call made utilizing an artificial oregon prerecorded voice” specified that it requires user consent pursuant to TCPA § 227(b)(1)(A)(iii).  Section 227(b) of the TCPA prohibits making calls to a cellphone “(other than a telephone made for exigency purposes oregon made with the anterior explicit consent of the called party) utilizing immoderate automatic telephone dialing strategy oregon an artificial oregon prerecorded voice.”

This bid responds to a 2017 petition that a institution filed with the FCC requesting the Commission state that ringless voicemails were not taxable to TCPA requirements specified that they would request to get user consent for the voicemail connection or, alternatively, supply them with a retroactive wavier arsenic they argued the process of delivering a ringless voicemail was “neither a telephone made to a mobile telephone fig nor a telephone for which a user is charged.”

Relying connected its 2015 bid uncovering that internet-to-phone substance messages are the aforesaid arsenic phone-to-phone substance messages which are taxable to the TCPA, the FCC concluded that the ringless voicemail process is akin to internet-to-phone substance messaging successful that it “direct[s] the messages by means of a wireless telephone fig and [depends] connected the transmission of a voicemail notification alert to the consumer’s telephone (causing the user to retrieve the voicemail message).”

The FCC besides rejected the petitioner’s statement that ringless voicemails are not taxable to the TCPA due to the fact that consumers are not charged, stating that the TCPA’s “restriction connected autodialed oregon prerecorded calls to wireless numbers is abstracted from the regularisation connected calls to services for which the caller is charged.”  In denying this petition, the FCC held that this declaratory ruling would use to “any entity that provides ringless voicemail utilizing the extremity user’s mobile telephone fig to nonstop the ringless voicemail connection to a mailbox associated with the extremity user’s mobile phone.”

The FCC besides denied the petitioner’s petition for a retroactive wavier, uncovering that the petitioner had failed to amusement bully origin arsenic the effect of ringless voicemails are specifically what the TCPA aims to prevent––“annoyance, clip spent reviewing and deleting, and imaginable crowding retired of wanted messages.”

This declaratory ruling is an important determination for entities who usage oregon person utilized ringless voicemails successful the past arsenic they whitethorn spot a emergence successful people enactment litigations oregon FCC enforcement actions.

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