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A New Senate Bill Would Hit Robocallers With Up To a $10,000 Fine For Every Call (gizmodo.com)
Massachusetts Democratic Senator Ed Markey and South Dakota Republican Senator John Thune have introduced a bill on Friday that aims to ramp up the penalties on illegal robocalls and stop scammers from sending them. Gizmodo reports: The Telephone Robocall Abuse Criminal Enforcement and Deterrence (TRACED) Act, raises the penalty for robocalls from $1,500 per call to up to $10,000 per call, and allows the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to take action on illegal robocalls up to three years after the calls are placed, instead of a year. The Act also aims to push the FCC to work along with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Department of Justice, Department of Homeland Security, Federal Trade Commission (FTC), and other agencies to provide information to Congress about advancements in hindering robocall and prosecuting scammers. Perhaps most importantly for us highly annoyed Americans, the bill would also force phone service providers to use call authentication that filters out illegitimate calls before they go through to consumers.
This is going to change things if it happens here's why:
Bounty hunters. If it's really 10K$ per call, I can offer to split my share with a bounty hunter who will track down the Mofo and collect.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
A lot of telcos offer services to block specific callers and such. Blocking robocalls is doable, but requires a bit more finesse. The telcos don't want the liability when the filter blocks a call that the recipient really wanted to receive. Even if they weren't legally liable for it, they still don't want to fight with a paying customer when it happens. It's safer, from a business standpoint, to not filter.
Really, we should just get rid of the telephone system. Put it on open protocols for audio/video/data, run it over the internet. End to end encrypted. That old shit has got to go. Plus, I don't want to pay for a phone plan when an iPhone and a data plan will do.