State Legislative Roundup for Thursday, Feb 22, 2024
With most state legislative sessions actively underway, we continue to provide our periodic roundup of bills under active consideration in the states that we are monitoring because they could have an impact on the ecommerce marketing landscape.
[NEW ADDITION] Illinois is considering House Bill 5566, which was introduced by Representative Matt Hanson and referred to the House Rules Committee on February 9, 2024 (D – Springfield). If adopted, the bill would amend Illinois’s Telephone Solicitation Act to make three key changes: (1) to prohibit a telemarketer from placing more than 3 calls to the same person during a 24-hour period; (2) prohibit intentionally altering the voice of the caller in an attempt to disguise or conceal the identity of the caller in order to: defraud or confuse the called party; and (3) to create a registration requirement for any person making telemarketing calls into Illinois.
[NEW ADDITION] Maryland is considering House Bill 53, which has passed the House and is now pending in the Maryland Senate. HB 53 would establish a task force to investigate e-commerce businesses with more than $10 billion in annual revenue to evaluate whether they have a monopoly in the e-commerce industry and whether those platforms are engaged in unfair competition by creating and selling their own version of a product that is already sold by third-party vendors on the platform and by leveraging algorithms and other tools to give themselves an unfair advantage in selling their version of the product over the product offered by those third-parties. The bill was introduced by Delegate Chao Wu (D-Annapolis).
Missouri is considering House Bill 2603 titled the "Caller ID Anti-Spoofing Act". The bill would create the offense of caller identification spoofing as a class E felony. The bill provides that recipient of any call (which is defined to include any telephone call, facsimile, or text message) in which the caller uses false caller ID information with the intent to deceive, defraud, or mislead the recipient has standing to recover punitive damages against the caller in an amount up to $5,000 per call and that call recipients may pursue the claims as a class action. The bill does not specifically address its application to text messages, including those sent using a shortcode. The bill was introduced by Representative Mitch Boggs (R-LaRussell).
Update as of Feb. 22, 2024: Following a public hearing on the bill on February 13, 2020, the House Special Committee for Innovation and Technology voted to pass the bill on February 20, 2024. The bill has not yet been placed on the calendar for a full vote by the Missouri house.
New Jersey is considering Senate Bill 1237 and Assembly Bill 2635 which was already passed by the Senate with a vote of 37-0 on February 12, 2024, and is now pending before the New Jersey Assembly’s Consumer Affairs Committee. The bill relates to the transmission of caller ID information on telemarking calls and provides that “a telemarketer shall not fail to transmit or cause to be transmitted the telephone number and, when made available by the telemarketer’s telephone company, the name of the telemarketer, to any caller identification service” except that it is permissible to “substitute . . . the name . . . and the seller’s customer service telephone number that is answered during regular business hours.” The bill does not specifically address its application to text messages, including those sent using a shortcode. The Senate bill was sponsored by Senators James Beach (D-Burlington and Camden) and Nellie Pou (D-Bergen and Passaic) and the Assembly Bill was sponsored by Assemblyman Jay Webber (R-Parsippany), Assemblywoman Aura Dunn (R-Chester), and Assemblywoman Tennille R. McCoy (D - Hamilton Square).
Update as of Feb. 22, 2024: No action has been taken on the bill in the New Jersey Assembly.
Tennessee is considering House Bill 2504 and Senate Bill 2410 that, if adopted, would amend the Tennessee criminal code to make it a Class A misdemeanor for a debt collector or inbound telemarketer service to “knowingly cause any caller identification service to transmit misleading or inaccurate caller identification information, including caller identification information that does not match the area code of the person or the debt collector or inbound telemarketer service the person is calling on behalf of, or that is not a toll-free phone number” with the “intent to induce the subscriber to answer.” The bill does not specifically define the “inbound telemarketer service” or address whether the prohibition would be applicable to text messages or specify if it applies to shortcodes. The bills are sponsored by Senator London Lamar (D-Nashville) and Representative Torrey Harris (D-Memphis). Currently the bill has been referred to the Senate Judiciary Committee and is on the calendar for debate in the House Banking & Consumer Affairs Subcommittee for February 20, 2024.
Update as of Feb. 22, 2024: On February 20, 2024, the Senate Banking & Consumer Affairs Committee voted to recommend passage of SB 2410 and referenced the legislation to the Senate Commerce Committee for further consideration. The bill is calendared for consideration by the Commerce Committee on February 27, 2024.
West Virginia is considering House Bill 5251, a West Virginia Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA), which has already sailed through the house passing 98-0 on February 9, 2024 and has now been referred to the Senate Judiciary Committee. Key provisions of the bill include:
o Prior express written consent: Requiring prior express written consent (with specified disclosures) for telephone calls, text messages, or voicemails that use “an automated system for the sequential or random generation of telephone numbers”, the “playing of a recorded or artificial voice,” or the “transmission of a prerecorded voicemail.”
o Caller ID Requirement: Prohibiting actions to intentionally prevent the transmission of a telemarketer’s name or telephone number but permitting the telemarketer to transmit the name of the company on behalf of which the calls or text or sent and the customer service telephone number for that business.
o Quiet Hours: Prohibiting telemarketing calls excerpt between the hours of 8 AM and 8 PM in the recipient’s time zone.
o 3 Call or Text Limit: Prohibiting more than 3 calls or texts in the same subject matter in a 24-hour period.
o Private Right of Action: Providing for a private right of action under the West Virginia Consumer Credit and Protection Act, which provides for the recovery actual damages or $200.
o Update as of Feb. 22, 2024: No action has been taken on the bill in the Senate Judiciary Committee.
