Note: the following information is not legal advice and is general in nature.
On April 1 2021, the US Supreme Court ruled on Facebook, Inc. v. Duguid, a case brought against the social media giant by Montana resident Noah Duguid.
Duguid alleged that Facebook had violated the Telephone Protection Consumer Act (TCPA) by sending him automated text messages without his consent. He was receiving notifications informing him that his Facebook account had been signed into from an unknown device, despite never having had a Facebook account.
The TCPA, which was originally passed in 1991, outlaws the use of “equipment which has the capacity—(A) to store or produce telephone numbers to be called, using a random or sequential number generator; and (B) to dial such numbers.”
In the years since the TCPA was signed into law, two different interpretations of this definition have been raised:
- Technology that stores or produces phone numbers to be called.
- Technology that stores or produces phone numbers to be called using a random or sequential number generator.
The first definition would likely include all dialing technology used in the industry today, including click-to-call dialers. This definition has been brought forward in numerous TCPA class actions against all different types of businesses. Also, this interpretation could theoretically include your mobile phone, since it stores a list of contacts you can dial.
The second definition, which appears to more closely match the wording of the Act, only includes software that can generate numbers for you. It doesn’t include dialer technology that allows you to contact a list of leads or customers.
The Facebook Inc. v. Duguid ruling
In the case of Facebook Inc. v. Duguid, the Supreme Court ruled unanimously in favour of Facebook. In doing so, the court clarified the definition of an automatic telephone dialing system (ATDS) relayed in the TCPA.
According to the judges, an ATDS must be able to either store or produce phone numbers either randomly or sequentially.
What does this ruling mean for businesses?
After this clarification from the Supreme Court, auto-dialing US phone numbers should not result in TCPA breaches, provided you meet your other compliance obligations (such as not making pre-recorded calls without consent).
The ruling presents a significant opportunity to review your organization’s outbound dialing activity and potentially improve the effectiveness of your customer outreach efforts.
As a first step, it’s a good idea to perform a legal review to analyze how the TCPA affects your operations specifically. There may also be other state-specific outbound dialing regulations that you need to consider.
It may be the case that you have the scope to try out new dialing strategies that were previously considered too risky due to the chance of a TCPA violation. For example, some interpretations of this ruling suggest that it renders click-to-call unnecessary when calling into the United States. You might be able to automate your outbound dialing efforts to improve your team’s efficiency and effectiveness.
Learn more about how you can use contactSPACE auto dialer software to make efficient, compliant customer contact. Or, discover contactSPACE Red or 4connect – our outbound dialing plugins for Twilio Flex and Amazon Connect, respectively.