The FCC wants to stop people from leaving ringless voicemails
Right now, there’s no end-all solution that will stop people from leaving ringless voicemails in people’s mailboxes. These are voicemail messages that are sent straight to people’s mailboxes without causing their phones to ring. A person could easily look to see a dozen unwanted voicemails in someone’s inbox. It’s a tedious process looking through your voicemails in general, and having a bunch of useless messages added to the mix just makes things worse. This exists in the same vein as getting numerous spam calls, and FCC is looking to put a damper on this whole situation. Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel has an idea to help the situation. She proposes that callers ask for your consent before sending ringless voicemails. This idea puts a lot of power in the people’s hands. Imagine a person, outright, asking you if they can leave unwanted voicemails in your inbox. The answer would be an automatic “NO!” This means that far fewer companies will be able to send messages to unsuspecting individuals. Rosenworcel’s proposal will basically extend the TCPA (Telephone Consumer Protection Act) to cover ringless voicemails. The act originally said that telemarketers need to obtain a person’s consent before they can make non-emergency calls to a person.
We don’t know when this will go into effect
As with most major government proposals, it’s going to be a long time before we see anything really materialize. Right now, the proposal could be sitting under a stack of other proposals on someone’s desk. The fact it’s a proposal means that it’s still basically an idea. It will have to be reviewed and approved before we can see any sort of change in the winds. For now, we’re all just going to have to deal with it. We can’t rule out any sort of intervention from the mobile carriers. Companies try to reduce how many spam calls we get from companies. If this issue gets enough traction, we could see the companies stepping in to help the situation. There’s no telling what the carriers could actually do. For now, we all need to wait for someone to come up with a solution.
