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Before the adoption of the Internet and e-mail, faxing was the common, inexpensive method for companies to market to their current or potential customer base.
Much like telemarketers calling people's homes, this practice, known as "batch faxing" blast faxing" or "junk faxing," became an annoyance to the recipients, who didn't necessarily want or need information on a particular product or service.
Unwanted faxes tie up fax machines for several minutes at a time, making it impossible for people who need to fax out a document to do so.
Faxing also causes the recipient to incur costs, since it uses the recipient's machine and paper to communicate.
In response to the thousands of complaints it has received over the years regarding unwanted faxes, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) enacted a new ruling in late August, prohibiting the distribution of faxes in certain situations. The new ruling, an update to the 1991 Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA), prohibits sending unsolicited ads by fax to both businesses and residences. Whether transmitted by fax...