The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) announced Tuesday that it has opened a new portal which private companies can use to report suspected robocalls and illegal call spoofing of their numbers. The portal, titled the Private Entity Robocall and Spoofing Portal, is designed to provide companies with a tool to combat spam callers using a legitimate
Do the text messages that Facebook sends to your phone with birthday reminders violate the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA)? According to the Ninth Circuit in a recent decision, the answer is no because users provided their phone numbers to Facebook and, in order to qualify as an automatic telephone dialing system (ATDS) under
On November 16, the Ninth Circuit issued a decision affirming the dismissal of a lawsuit on the grounds that to qualify as an automatic telephone dialing system (ATDS) under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) the telephone system must randomly or sequentially generate telephone numbers, not just any numbers.
In Borden v. eFinancial, LLC,
On November 21, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) issued a Declaratory Ruling and Order finding that companies must obtain consent before sending a “ringless voicemail” to a consumer’s phone because it constitutes a “call” made using an artificial or prerecorded voice and is subject to the provisions of the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA). “Ringless
Do text messages sent by a chatbot fall within the provisions of the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) prohibiting unsolicited calls made using an “artificial or prerecorded voice?” According to the United States District Court for the Northern District of California, the answer to that question is no.
In Risher v. Adecco, Inc., the litigation
More than two years ago, the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in Johnson v. NPAS Solutions, LLC, 975 F.3d 1244 (11th Cir. 2020) that incentive payments for lead plaintiffs in class-action lawsuits are improper. After being denied rehearing en banc, the plaintiff has filed a petition for writ of certiorari for the
On October 12, the Ninth Circuit issued a decision, reversing the dismissal of a lawsuit on the grounds that the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) does not extend to unwanted business texts. In Chennette v. Porch.com, the Ninth Circuit held TCPA statutory protections extend not only to individuals, but also to business entities.
Escalating efforts to crack down on illegal robocalls, state attorneys general announced on August 2 that they have established a nationwide Anti-Robocall Litigation Task Force. The task force comprises attorneys general from all 50 states and will investigate and prosecute companies suspected of allowing or using illegal robocalls from foreign entities. While the states have
Class-action plaintiffs do not get a free pass on constitutional standing requirements, as the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals reminded litigants sua sponte in Drazen and Godaddy.com, LLC v. Pinto last week when it vacated a district court’s approval of a $35 million class-action settlement. Although the parties had not briefed the issue before the
On July 18, a New Jersey district court ruled that a customer’s contract termination with a merchant does not also terminate the “established business relationship” (EBR) exception for purposes of the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA). The decision sheds light on an exception to the TCPA that likely will take on increasing importance, following the