FCC Report Finds Substantial Availability of Robocall Blocking Tools

The Federal Communications Commission issued its 2020 staff report on the availability and effectiveness of call blocking tools offered to consumers. Surveying data submitted by a variety of commenters, the FCC found that call blocking tools are now substantially available to consumers at no or low cost. In addition to this report, FCC Chairman Ajit Pai announced that the FCC will
consider at its July 16 Open Meeting an Order that would, among other things, give voice service providers a safe harbor from liability for the unintended or inadvertent blocking of calls so long as such action is based upon reasonable analytics indicating that such calls were unwanted and therefore should be blocked. The proposal would also enable responsible providers to block calls from the bad actor providers that facilitate illegal and unwanted calls.