MENLO PARK, Calif. (AP) — A federal appeals court rolled back rules intended to deter irritating telemarketing robocalls, saying they were too broad.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit said 2015 regulations from the Federal Communications Commission could wrongly classify every smartphone as an autodialing device subject to anti-robocall fines. Those 2015 rules attempted to graft modern definitions onto a 1991 law that predated the iPhone by more than 15 years.
The court also struck down rules that could levy fines on telemarketers who repeatedly call phone numbers reassigned to people who have opted out of such calls.
FCC Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel said in a tweet the ruling was “not good.” In a statement, she said, “robocalls will continue to increase unless the FCC does something about it.”
The court said the FCC’s Obama-era rules were “unreasonably expansive” and could have swept up just about anyone. Its ruling offered the example of someone organizing a get-together and texting 10 people without obtaining their prior consent, which under the rules could subject her to a potential fine of $500 per person.
While it agreed smartphones could be used as autodialers by installing an app, the court said the FCC’s rules did not make a clear enough distinction between phones that had downloaded such software and those that hadn’t.
In voiding a one-strike rule intended to prevent telemarketers from dialing reassigned numbers more than once, the court found it would be difficult for companies to avoid calling a second time even if they were acting in good faith. It also said the current rule was being abused, citing reports of a new phone customer who waited to receive 900 text alerts intended for a previous subscriber in order to rack up potential penalties before filing a lawsuit.