Are you inundated with text message spam? The FCC wants(Opens in a new window) mobile service providers to block robotext messages that it deems “highly likely to be illegal.”
That includes texts from what appear to be invalid, unallocated, or unused phone numbers, which “no consumer would want to receive,” according to the FCC. Draft regulations also extend Do Not Call Registry protections to texts, prohibit the sending of marketing texts to registered numbers, and require wireless companies to provide a single point of contact for SMS senders.
“Missing packages that don’t exist; confirmation of payments that didn’t happen; links to shady websites; and truncated ‘wrong number’ messages from strangers. These scam robotexts are a part of everyday life for too many of us,” says FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel.
Rosenworcel, who proposed the new rules this week, says she’s “asking my colleagues to join me in adopting the first FCC rules to focus on shutting down scam texts.”
Text of Rosenworcel’s proposal is online(Opens in a new window); the full commission is expected to vote on it at the March 16 meeting. No matter the outcome of next month’s vote, the FCC will continue taking public comment on text authentication measures and other proposals to fight illegal scam robotexts.
This isn’t the FCC’s first robotext rodeo: Former Chairman Ajit Pai in 2018 led a campaign to classify SMS and MMS messaging as “information services,” allowing carriers to keep combating spam and scam robotext messages without jumping over regulatory hurdles. Then-Commissioner Rosenworcel, however, argued that the move did little to stop robotexts, and instead simply allowed carriers to “censor the very content of the messages themselves.”
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Pai followed up in 2019 with a proposal that would broaden spoofing protections to texts, calls originating from outside the US, and voice-over-IP (VoIP) calls.
In 2021, having been named FCC Acting Chairwoman, Rosenworcel proposed a new rule requiring carriers to block illegal text messages to defend people from scammers. That came after the FCC received 14,000 complaints about unwanted texts in 2020, a 148% increase over 2019.
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