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In the US you can report them to the FCC: https://www.fcc.gov/rules-political-campaign-calls-and-texts https://www.fcc.gov/rules-political-campaign-calls-and-te
by solardev 3y ago
In the US you can report them to the FCC: https://www.fcc.gov/rules-political-campaign-calls-and-texts https://www.fcc.gov/rules-political-campaign-calls-and-texts
Keep in mind that sometimes they can skirt the rules by not using automation per se. Instead, they have a bunch of volunteers sit in a room (or online) with special apps that distribute a phone number list (often from NGPVan or the Republican equivalent, forget what it's called) between the individual devices. Then each human has to click "send" or "call". It still gets routed through their VOIP systems, but because there's a human in the loop, it's no longer fully automated... just like 90%, enough to get around the FCC rules.
It's pretty sketch. I went to one of those volunteer parties before I realized that's what they're doing.
Thankfully Google Fi does a really good job at blocking this kind of spam, texts or calls.
- troydavis 3y agoJust to clarify for anyone reading, this meets the FCC's requirements (ie, it's legal and the FCC won't do anything about it), but it generally is not allowed by the terms of use of the underlying wholesale carrier. So, you should still report it to the sending carrier. Background: Most larger, reputable US-based wholesale carriers have policies that are similar to the CTIA's guidelines for political campaigns: https://www.ctia.org/news/political-text-messaging-engaging-and-organizing-voters-while-protecting-consumers https://www.ctia.org/news/political-text-messaging-engaging-... . CTIA sets a much higher threshold, including opt-in permission. This is a bit like the FCC's definition of email spam (a very low bar - what's legal) vs. a mainstream email service provider's terms of use (a much higher bar - what they permit you to send through them).
- solardev 3y agoThanks for this clarification/differentiation!