Businesses rally against proposal to block robocalls

May 31, 2019

A coalition of business groups is rallying against a federal proposal that would allow phone carriers to block certain calls by default, an effort to crack down on illegal robocalls.

In a filing with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), the health care providers, pharmacies and collection agencies argued the FCC proposal could block “legal” robocalls as well as those that are fraudulent or from scammers.

“Public safety alerts, fraud alerts, data security breach notifications, product recall notices, healthcare and prescription reminders, and power outage updates all could be inadvertently blocked under the draft Declaratory Order, among other time-sensitive calls,” the groups wrote in the filing Thursday…