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FCC To Consider Making Text Messaging an Information Service, Denying Twilio Petition (fiercewireless.com)
The FCC has unveiled a new proposal as part of its plan to help reduce unwanted phone and text spam. From a report: In a move that's sure to make wireless operators happy, the FCC at its December meeting will consider a draft Declaratory Ruling on text messaging that would formally rule text messaging services are information services, not telecommunications services. That means carriers will be able to continue using robotext-blocking and anti-spoofing measures to protect consumers from unwanted text messages. Chairman Ajit Pai revealed the plan in a blog post highlighting items on the Dec. 12 meeting agenda.
"Today's wireless messaging providers apply filtering to prevent large volumes of unwanted messages from ever reaching your phone," Pai wrote. "However, there's been an effort underway to put these successful consumer protections at risk. In 2015, a mass-texting company named Twilio petitioned the FCC, arguing that wireless messaging should be classified as a 'telecommunications service.' This may not seem like a big deal, but such a classification would dramatically curb the ability of wireless providers to use robotext-blocking, anti-spoofing, and other anti-spam features."
That's why he's circulating a Declaratory Ruling that would instead classify wireless messaging as an "information service," denying Twilio's petition [PDF]. "Aside from being a more legally sound approach, this decision would keep the floodgates to a torrent of spam texts closed, remove regulatory uncertainty, and empower providers to continue finding innovative ways to protect consumers from unwanted text messages," Pai said.
"Today's wireless messaging providers apply filtering to prevent large volumes of unwanted messages from ever reaching your phone," Pai wrote. "However, there's been an effort underway to put these successful consumer protections at risk. In 2015, a mass-texting company named Twilio petitioned the FCC, arguing that wireless messaging should be classified as a 'telecommunications service.' This may not seem like a big deal, but such a classification would dramatically curb the ability of wireless providers to use robotext-blocking, anti-spoofing, and other anti-spam features."
That's why he's circulating a Declaratory Ruling that would instead classify wireless messaging as an "information service," denying Twilio's petition [PDF]. "Aside from being a more legally sound approach, this decision would keep the floodgates to a torrent of spam texts closed, remove regulatory uncertainty, and empower providers to continue finding innovative ways to protect consumers from unwanted text messages," Pai said.
We should just get new rules for Telecom services that allow providers to implement agreeable blocking measures.
We rely on texts. My provider should not have unilateral authority to decide what text messages I do and don't receive,
assuming all the text messages are from an authentic (Non-Spoofed) source.
However, the FCC should also allow protections against SPOOFING and reasonable Denial of Service attack protections for Telecom services....
And as for blocking spam for telecom services: BOTH text message-based AND call-based robocalling and solicitation attempts ---
Providers SHOULD be encouraged and allowed to provide filtering, provided recipients have the option of controlling and/or opting out entirely of
content filtering services if so desired, And rate limits above a reasonable amount of traffic To/From a particular authentic sender/recipient should be allowed
with an Option of notification to the recipient when some messages are being suppressed.
For example: A system where someone can't send you more than a few text messages before you have replied.
Or better yet, a system where "unknown contacts" can only send you 1 or 2 messages per day unless you "Add" them to friends.
Also, someone who sends a text message to more than 3 unique recipients in an hour who never sent them a text and don't have them on their friends list will become rate limited to 1 text per 15 minutes.
No, he just doesn't want to regulate them, so he's suggesting that the carriers "regulate" them instead, and by "regulate" I mean "charge", "favor", etc. So you'll continue to get spam, because that's paid for, but you won't get TFA tokens or fraud alerts, because nobody's willing to pay for that.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
When the 1996 Telecommunications Act was being drafted, the intersection of the internet and personal communications devices was in its infancy. Browsers and hypertext pages that made the internet usable by ordinary people were only a few years old. Congress thought it understood the emerging marketplace and technology. It was wrong. There is nothing shocking about them being wrong about it. They gave the FCC a framework within which to make rules, but when the framework doesn't match the technology and marketplace there is no objective, technical, reconciliation that can happen. So the rules lurch with the winds of whatever the current administration is.
Congress should revisit the law, make the key political decisions and compromises, and pass a revised law. There was a failed effort to do it, but it is worth trying again. Otherwise we have an unending mess of the rules twisting in the political winds of whoever is president forever.
What the carriers are currently doing and what the FCC is proposing are both wrong. Everything wireless companies do is a telecommunications service, not an information service, so that covers why the FCC is wrong.
What the carriers are doing now is also wrong: the intelligence should be at the edges. Now that all cell phones, including flip phones, are pocket computers, it's time to leverage those smarts. The wireless companies need to deliver everything (and charge a flat rate for access, none of this per minute/per text/per gigabyte bullshit)[1], and let the endpoints decide what they want to see. The wireless companies can maybe run the equivalent of the Adblock lists for spam text, and maybe enable them by default for handsets they sell, but I bet most people would opt for third party block lists. Cell phones should come with trivially easy interfaces to block unwanted texts and calls, out of the box. Maybe going so far as having a white list mode. It's long past time for the edges to be making the decisions, and the telecom providers getting their grubby mits out of our data.
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[1]If consumer flat rates can't pay for the network, charge the spammers more. They're business accounts anyway. Different rules.