Robocall Bill Wins Approval in the House

[NurseJackie]

https://www.consumerreports.org/robocalls/robocall-bill-wins-approval/


Robocall Bill Wins Approval in the House
The final measure to increase consumer protections is expected in the fall

By Octavio Blanco
July 24, 2019

A crackdown on robocalls moved one step closer Wednesday after the House voted 429-3 to increase consumer protections against the unsolicited and annoying phone calls.

The bill, known as the Stopping Bad Robocalls Act, builds on the TRACED Act passed by the Senate in May. The House and the Senate now need to reconcile the two bills before sending the legislation to the White House for the President’s signature. That's expected to happen in the fall.

(...)

Key Provisions

The House bill calls for the FCC to create—within 18 months of the law's enactment—guidelines for a system callers and consumers alike can use to easily report incorrectly blocked calls. Here are some of the other provisions:

Free robocall blocking. Last month, the FCC voted to allow carriers, including the Big Four—AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile and Sprint—to take more aggressive steps to block suspected spam and scam calls, removing legal impediments that had prevented automatic enrollment in call-blocking services offered by the companies. The new House bill stipulates that those blocking services must be provided to consumers “with no additional line item charge.”

Call authentication technology. Under the House bill, the biggest telecoms have one year after the official enactment of a new robocall law to implement SHAKEN/STIR technology, creating a call authentication system that uses digital fingerprints, or tokens, to help providers determine if the number that shows up on Caller ID is the same as the number from which a call is placed. The Senate bill has proposed an 18-month timeframe.

(more at link)

[hunter]

1. It's about time.

Everybody hates these calls. Why did it take so long to do something about it?

[Niagara]

2. KnR

[greatauntoftriplets]

3. Thank the gods.

I've had three calls already today from the same damned "unavailable" number. One was shortly after 8 a.m.

[gratuitous]

4. Is it more complicated than adding a setting?

"Allow calls through from numbers not in your directory. ___ Yes ___ No"

If my phone doesn't know you, I don't know you. Call blocked. Done.

Still liable to calls from spoofed numbers in your phone directory, I suppose, but the volume of calls would drop off greatly. Institute a financial penalty of say $250 to cell phone carrier for each instance of failing to protect its subscribers from unwanted calls, and I'd bet the frequency of scam calls would go to zero overnight.

[DeminPennswoods]

5. The House, Senate bills have to be reconciled, but

Yay!

[lpbk2713]

6. It might help a little.

But those who want to continue pumping out telegarbage
will just go offshore and the US laws won't mean squat.
And they will continue to identify with a bogus number.