Wasden joins other attorneys general and 12 companies to fight illegal automated appeals

The following is a press release from the Attorney General of Idaho.

Attorney General Lawrence Wasden announced Thursday that 12 telephone companies and a coalition of 51 Attorneys General had agreed to adopt eight principles to combat illegal automated calls. The agreement will help protect phone users from illegal automated calls and allow attorneys general to investigate and prosecute more easily from bad actors.

"Automated calls are a scourge for all of us, but I'm optimistic. Through collaborations like this, we can begin to tackle the problem, "said Wasden. "It's bigger than one state, and I'm pleased to see attorneys general and telephone operators working together to solve the problem."

The principles, available here, address the problem of automated calls through prevention and enforcement.

The telephone companies will employ to prevent illegal automated calls by:

• Implementation of call blocking technology at the network level at no cost to customers.
• Providing customers with additional, free, easy-to-use tools, blocking and tagging calls.
• Implementation of a technology to authenticate that the callers come from a valid source.
• Monitor their networks for robocall traffic.

The telephone companies will help prosecutors enforce the anti-appeal rules by:

• Knowing who their customers are so bad, actors can be identified and studied.
• Investigate and take action against suspected appellants, including by notifying state law enforcement and state attorneys general.
• Work with law enforcement agencies, including state attorneys general, to investigate the origin of illegal automated appeals.
• Require the telephone companies with whom they have a contract to cooperate in tracing identification.

The telephone companies are committed to staying in close contact with Attorneys General to optimize the protection of automated calls as rogue technology and techniques evolve.

The coalition includes attorneys general from 50 states and Washington, DC. Participating companies include AT & T, Bandwidth, CenturyLink, Charter, Comcast, Consolidated, Frontier, Sprint, T-Mobile, US Cellular, Verizon and Windstream.