Mississippi Charges Five Telemarketers for No-Call Violations

The Mississippi PSC announced that it has charged five companies that made 442 illegal calls.  Should these entities be found to have violated the No-Call law, they are subject to a $5,000 per call fine; totaling $2,210,000.  Notices of alleged violations were recently filed against the companies.

“Our staff will continue to do everything they can to actively seek out companies and individuals who continue to violate our No-Call law.  We remain vigilant and will ultimately bring those who violate it to justice. These illegal calls against the people of our state will stop,” said Commissioner Presley.

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The Regulatory Mix Today:  Mississippi Charges Five Telemarketers for No-Call Violations, Nevada Enacts Cybersecurity Law, FCC Starks Asks Carriers About Charges for Robocall Blocking

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Nevada Enacts Cybersecurity Law

Nevada has enacted a new law that among other things: revises requirements relating to emergency response plans for schools, cities, counties and resort hotels; requires each city or county to adopt and maintain a cybersecurity incident response plan; and requires the Nevada Office of Cyber Defense Coordination of the Department of Public Safety to submit a quarterly report to the Governor regarding cybersecurity. 

FCC Starks Asks Carriers About Charges for Robocall Blocking

FCC Commissioner Geoffrey Starks announced he has sent letters to the major voice service providers seeking details about their plans to offer free, default call blocking services to consumers to combat disruptive and dangerous robocalls.  The letters ask the companies to:

• Indicate whether they will offer customers default call blocking services on an informed opt-out basis and, if so, provide details of plans to deploy these services, including a timeline for implementation.
•  Describe how they intend to inform consumers about the service.
• Indicate whether they expect to act contrary to the Commission’s clear expectations and nevertheless charge customers for these services.
• If they do not currently plan to offer customers default call blocking services on an informed opt-out basis, they are asked to explain why.

Starks said: “Carriers made clear to the Commission: they want to offer call blocking services to consumers by default. My colleagues and I made clear to carriers: they should not charge consumers for these services. The Commission has acted. Now it is industry’s turn to put these new tools to work for consumers. I’m looking forward to learning the details of their plans to do so.”

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The Regulatory Mix, Inteserra’s blog of telecom related regulatory activities, is a snapshot of PUC, FCC, legislative, and occasionally court issues that our regulatory monitoring team uncovers each day. Depending on their significance, some items may be the subject of an Inteserra Briefing.