Twitter Seeks TCPA Clarification

The FCC should clarify that “called party” under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act refers to the “intended recipient” of a call or text to a cellphone, Twitter said in a comment, supporting the Consumer Bankers Association petition for a declaratory ruling seeking clarification of the term. Twitter tries to identify reassigned cell numbers and remove them from its messaging platform, said the company’s filing in docket 02-278. The issue involves a spate of TCPA lawsuits about whether companies are liable for autodialing people who have not consented to getting the calls, but use a reassigned phone, in which the previous owner had given consent, said a CBA comment, also posted Tuesday. Twitter gathers information about reassigned numbers from wireless carriers and updates its records, but carriers provide it at varying and sporadic levels, Twitter said. It’s “not possible for businesses to learn comprehensively and in real-time whether a given cell phone number has been reassigned to another person,” Twitter said.