Content area
Full text
On September 17, the FCC announced the adoption of regulations governing "unwanted"interstate telphone solicitation ot residential consumers, regulating the use auto-dialers and prerecorded or artificial voice messages, and prohibiting the use of facismile machines for advertising purposes. Thes new regualtions, which were to be issued by mid-October to become effective on December 20, 1992, implement the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) signed by President Bush in late 1991. The statute and rules are basically designed to assure that consumers who do not wish to receive interstate telemarketing calls have a means to remove their names from calling lists and to protect consumers from "intrusive" marketing practices resulting from the use of ADRMPs (automatic dialing recorded message players), auto-dialers and fax machines. Different requirements apply to "live operator calls" (made with or without auto-dialers), to the uses of ADRMPs and to auto-dialers. The rules apply only to interstate calls. Marketers still must separately comply with applicable state rules with respect to telemarketing calls that originate and terminate in the same state, even if these state rules are more restrictive than the new federal standards. As a brief review will show, the responsibilities imposed on marketers by the new rules must be taken seriously.
DO NOT CALL
The DMA and others strongly urged the FCC not to adopt a mandatory national "do-not-call" or "do call" database. The FCC obviously saw the merit of these arguments. Thus, in case of live operator calls, the rules will require only that the telemarketer maintain company-specific, in-house do-not-call lists. Telemarketers may use industry-wide do-not-call programs, such as the DMA's TPS program, as part of their company-specific, do-not-call policy; but exclusive reliance on TPS or, for that matter, state asterisk or do-not-call programs may not be enough to protect marketers from legal action. Marketers should, therefore, establish their own do-not-call policies and lists.
The FCC has adopted specific requirements...