Robocalls: Businesses dial up pressure on the FCC

Business groups representing industries from health care to banking are pressuring the Federal Communications Commission to ease its rules on robocalls — saying they should get a carve-out for technology that automatically dials customers.

In meetings with top FCC aides, executives with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the American Bankers Association and American Association of Health Care Administrative Management say they’re being victimized by unfair class action lawsuits brought under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act and that the “predictive dialers” they use should be exempt from robocall rules. Such predictive-dialing technology allows “businesses with a legitimate need to contact large numbers of specific customers for nontelemarketing purposes,” the groups told top FCC staff during a spate of recent meetings. The meeting is part of an escalating fight at the commission over the TCPA, a 1991 law designed to crack down on telemarketer robocalls peddling goods and services. Congress modified the law in 2003, ordering the Federal Trade Commission to establish a Do Not Call Registry for consumers.