WASHINGTON –U.S. telecommunications companies need to deploy the latest technology to improve consumer protection from unsolicited robocalls, the chairwoman of the Senate consumer protection subcommittee said Wednesday.
But telecommunications industry officials were skeptical of sweeping high-tech solutions.
“It’s unlikely that any technological silver bullet can permanently solve the robocall problem,” said Kevin Rupy, director of law and policy at United States Telecom Association. “Like so many issues that arise in the Internet space, it is a constantly evolving and moving target.”
Sen. Claire McCaskill, chairwoman of the Senate Subcommittee on Consumer Protection, Product Safety and Insurance, said that’s no reason to do nothing about the pesky calls.
“We have the same technology as the bad guys,” she said, adding that domestic carriers seem to be “behind the eight-ball” with respect to using technology to fight back.
The National Do Not Call Registry was created 10 years ago to prevent irritating telemarketing calls to consumers who joined the registry. Nevertheless, modern technology makes it easy and inexpensive for robocallers to call thousands of numbers a day using a hidden or “spoofed” caller I.D.
The Federal Communications Commission said the number of robocall complaints doubled in the past two years, reaching 100,000 complaints in 2012. McCaskill said the Federal Trade Commission receives more than 200,000 complaints about robocalls each month. Authorities estimate robocalling scams cost Americans more than $40 billion annually.
“It seems to me that you’re playing whack-a-mole,” McCaskill, D-Mo., said to representatives from the FCC and FTC, the agencies that deal with robocalling problems.
Telecommunications trade association officials agreed that it’s tough to keep up with the scammers.
“Every time you raise the wall, the bad guys come back at you with a taller ladder,” said Michael Altschul, vice president of CTIA – The Wireless Association.
The FTC launched a competition for innovative solutions to the problem of robocalling.
“The technology exists, right now, to block illegal robocalls,” said Aaron Foss, software developer for Nomorobo, a winning entry in the FTC Robocall Challenge. Nomorobo creates a real-time, constantly updated blacklist of robocallers. The finalized system will be rolled out by the end of this summer, Foss said.
Canadian carrier Primus Telecommunications Inc., has a program, Telemarketing Guard, that grants customers control over which telemarketing calls they will receive and successfully relies on customer feedback to identify and block unwanted telemarketer numbers, said Chief Technology Officer Matthew Stein.
“I can’t for the life of me figure out why [U.S. carriers] are not trying more aggressively to attain that technology on behalf of consumers,” McCaskill said.
The industry officials said they had concerns about using anti-robocall technology, but agreed to report back in three months with information about what it would take for U.S. carriers to implement it.