[Lead Gen] FCC Regulations Around Mass Texting/Cold Calling, and How to Be Compliant with Them
My usual disclaimer: although I had a year of pre-law back in the day, I ain’t a lawyer, and I don’t play one on TV; I don’t have fiduciary responsibility towards you, your business, or to anyone else; and none of what I’m about to say here can be considered legal, financial, or taxation advice because I am not competent to give such to anyone. Run it by your own legal counsel, and conduct your business accordingly. Getting ahead of "the sky is falling" FUD (fear, uncertainty, and doubt) that you may have been seeing in Facebook groups & elsewhere about all of this 🙄 First of all, these regulations are NOT "new". The Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) was signed into law in 1991, and it amended the Communications Act of 1934. Every so often, the two bodies charged with enforcing the law (the Federal Trade Commission and the Federal Communications Commission) issue updated regulations and rules as technology changes and as people use and abuse that technology to the detriment of consumers. Just over a year ago (on December 18, 2023), the FCC issued FCC Rule 23-107: “Targeting and Eliminating Unlawful Text Messages, Rules and Regulations Implementing the Telephone Consumer Protection Act of 1991, Advanced Methods to Target and Eliminate Unlawful Robocalls”. As usual, such rule changes go into effect in a rolling 12 months after being published in the Federal Register. Hence while the FCC gave everyone a year to get their acts together, the enforcement of FCC Rule 23-107 is going to come into effect on January 27, 2025. The TL;DR of this underlining of already-existing parts of the TCPA as well as emphasis of new enforcement of it, that has gotten wholesalers and other business owners into such a tizzy: Obtaining consumer leads from a lead seller is OK, as long as the lead seller is TCPA-compliant: * 1:1 consent: marketers MUST get CLEAR, INDIVIDUAL, WRITTEN CONSENT from EACH consumer for EACH specific seller, BEFORE you reach out to a consumer with your marketing message;