Advanced Methods To Target and Eliminate Unlawful Robocalls

In this document, the Commission adopts two safe harbors for voice service providers that block calls in certain situations, and adopts certain measures to ensure that erroneous blocking is quickly remedied. Specifically, the Commission adopts a safe harbor from liability under the Communications Act and the Commission's rules for terminating voice service providers that block calls on an opt-out basis based on reasonable analytics designed to identify unwanted calls, so long as those take into account information provided by caller ID authentication where available for a particular call. Second, the Commission adopts a safe harbor enabling voice service providers to block traffic from bad-actor upstream voice service providers that continue to allow unwanted calls to traverse their networks. Finally, the Commission requires that blocking providers furnish a single point of contact to resolve unintended or inadvertent blocking, and emphasizes that, when blocking, they should make all reasonable efforts to ensure that critical calls, such as those from Public Safety Answering Points (PSAPs), are not blocked and that they should never block calls to 911. These rules both respond to voice service providers that seek assurance that their good-faith blocking will not result in liability if they inadvertently block wanted calls and implement the call blocking provisions of the TRACED Act, and provide safeguards against erroneous blocking.