The FCC has a new plan to combat unwanted automated calls and spammed texts

The US government announced on Tuesday that it was considering fighting the scourge of unsolicited phone calls and spam messages that affect millions of consumers – but one of its proposals has been sharply criticized, its critics fearing that it will allow the telecommunications giants to censor their legitimate communications.

The first step, announced by the Federal Communications Commission, is to create a national database containing information on recently disconnected phone numbers reassigned to another person. This effort is intended to help companies, such as banks and pharmacies, avoid dialing the wrong client multiple times.

The second, more controversial measure would give text messaging the same legal status as broadband Internet, offering mobile operators such as AT & T and Verizon additional leeway to block and filter text messages. that they consider spam.

Together, the two proposals could reduce automated calls and unwanted text messages by giving telecommunication companies the means to fight spam and raise new expectations, said FCC President Ajit Pai, who will be voting in favor. . in December.

But Pai's plan, aimed in particular at the texts, sparked the fury of the Commissioner for Democracy, Jessica Rosenworcel, who criticized her reasoning for calling it "false dual language".

"It's the same agency that gave you the right to censor your online business by demoting the neutrality of the Internet," she said in a statement. "Now, the agency wants consumers to believe that it's a good thing to give mobile phone companies the ability to block your text messages. It does not make sense. "

Describing his plans Tuesday, Pai pointed out in an article on his blog that the FCC's goal was "to help protect consumers from unwanted contacts on their phones, regardless of the type of contact." Earlier this month, he also warned AT & T, Verizon and other telecommunications giants that the agency would "act" in 2019 if the industry did not adopt its own additional protections against automated calls. .

To clarify how operators can handle spam texts, the agency said it hoped to classify text messages as a slightly regulated information service – the same legal category as the FCC. applies to regulate Internet access. If adopted, it was the first time that the agency gave an official classification to SMS, senior officials said Tuesday.

This initiative is a setback for cloud communications company Twilio, which in 2015 asked the FCC to impose stricter rules on text messaging, so that competitive wireless operators can not block its services. . This request would be denied if the FCC followed up on Pai's plan. In a statement released Tuesday, the company announced that it "will review in detail the decision of the FCC when it is published."

Pai's decision drew the public's attention, the consumer advocacy group Public Knowledge, which said the government had already made it clear in 2016 that mobile operators had close permission to block and filter texts undesirable. The new measure could instead give telecommunications companies greater leeway to block even legitimate SMS, said Public Knowledge, which submitted its own petition on the subject in 2007 and supported Twilio's efforts.

"It would not be the holiday season without President Pai offering a large basket of gifts to particular commercial interests at the expense of US consumers," said Public Knowledge Vice President Harold Feld. "President Pai's action would give carriers unlimited freedom to censor any speech they consider" controversial, "as Verizon did in 2007 by blocking NARAL."

Verizon quickly reversed the situation and unblocked the group texts a few hours after the revelation of the incident. But the episode has raised questions about the power of the telecommunications industry to discriminate against Americans and control their speech, Public Knowledge said in its 2007 petition.

Mr Pai said the next decision "would keep the door open to a flood of spam texts, dispel regulatory uncertainty, and give suppliers the ability to continue to find innovative ways to protect consumers from unsolicited text messages." desired ". Other proponents of Pai's proposal, such as the National Emergency Number Association, warned that 911 regulators might one day be "flooded" with spam texts if the FCC had not approved the measure.

In the meantime, with its proposed telephone number database, the FCC is targeting "legitimate businesses," including pharmacies that automatically call customers to inform them that their prescriptions are ready, for example, or the companies that issue them. credit cards that call their cardholders with payment reminders. . If it is adopted, telecom operators will pool their knowledge of who has changed their number in a searchable portal so that new owners of that number do not receive unsolicited calls.

For FCC senior officials, this is about saving consumers from trouble while helping businesses avoid federal lawsuits to fight automated calls. Business groups such as the US Chamber of Commerce have supported the adoption of such a database, as well as consumer rights advocates, including the National Consumer Law Center. Margot Freeman Saunders, senior counsel at the NCLC, said Tuesday that she could "help consumers a lot by preventing unwanted calls".

However, many details of its implementation are unresolved, including how the FCC plans to implement it. The FCC also decided not to rewrite all the rules of the anti-appeal government, following a court challenge – mainly brought by a professional association of debt collectors – which was adopted by President Barack Obama. The officials of the agency have announced that such a recast would be imminent.

Reports of unwanted phone calls are up. Nearly half of mobile phone calls next year will be spam, according to forecasts by First Orion, a caller ID firm.

Pai wrote in his blog that only 2.8% of text messages are spam. But, he added, this is due to the fact that mobile operators are trying to block unwanted messages and need greater certainty that their efforts will not result in a violation of FCC code.