The FCC fined Calling 10, Telseven and their owner Patrick Hines more than $3.4 million for unauthorized charges they billed to consumers, and other rules violations, said an agency release on Enforcement Bureau actions (here, here) approved under the consent agenda at Thursday's commission meeting. The related companies in Florida "deceived consumers who mistakenly called their toll-free numbers about their purported services and then subsequently billed those consumers for services that were neither provided nor requested, a practice known as 'cramming,'" said the release. "At the direction of Mr. Hines, the companies, based in the Jacksonville area, acquired approximately one million toll-free numbers, some of which were similar to existing working numbers or formerly used by well-known entities such as Chase Bank and other financial institutions. These acquisitions served no apparent purpose other than to increase the likelihood that consumers would dial one of these numbers and reach Telseven or Calling 10 by mistake," the release said. The companies didn't deny the violations, but Hines said he shouldn't be held personally liable, it said. Neither Hines nor a representative of the companies could be reached for comment.

The number of U.S. robocalls jumped 55 percent to 2.3 billion in January compared to December, a new monthly high, said YouMail in a release Thursday noting its latest National Robocall index. That's 858 robocalls per second on average and is roughly three times the rate from four months ago, said the company, which bases its estimates on calls blocked and/or reported as spam by subscribers using its intelligent telecom answering services. “Having answered billions of calls for its users, YouMail uses algorithms to detect any automatically dialed calls and then aggregates that call data into the Robocall Index," it said. Atlanta was the most-targeted city, receiving 99.6 million robocalls, followed by Dallas, Chicago, Houston and New York City. Columbus, Ohio, generated 71.6 million robocalls, the most of any city for the third straight month, said the firm, noting credit card debt collectors remained the most prolific robocallers, occupying 18 of the top 20 spots. YouMail said the presidential campaign may have contributed some to the increase in January, as the number of robocalls in Iowa grew 46 percent; New Hampshire 55 percent; and in South Carolina 79 percent in Charleston, 83 percent in Columbia.

The Telephone Consumer Protection Act is a continuing cash cow for lawyers and the FCC has only added to the problem, Adonis Hoffman, chairman of Business in the Public Interest, said in a blog post on The Hill website. The FCC offered clarity on TCPA last year, but Hoffman, former chief of staff to Commissioner Mignon Clyburn, said the agency got the balance wrong (see 1506160056). “The party-line vote signaled a deeper fissure between consumer protection and reasonable business practices at the FCC, with business on the short end of the compromise,” he wrote. The FCC’s ruling actually tightened the restrictions on companies, he said. TCPA’s status as a strict liability statute, in which companies can have to pay for even a single misstep “has found special favor with aggressive plaintiffs' attorneys who have exploited the loopholes to reap extraordinary financial gain,” Hoffman wrote. “To date, thousands of class action lawsuits have been filed against businesses because they either have called a consumer in error, or have called many customers using automatic dialing systems but failed to obtain the necessary consent required by the law. Often these communications are designed to alert us about fraud and identity theft; to confirm transactions; to remind us of appointments or due dates; to help avoid overdraft fees; or generally to facilitate better customer service or relations.”

Rural interests called for Connect America Fund (CAF) Phase II reverse auction rules that "promote smart investment in high-speed networks that are future proof, scalable, and will be able to withstand the ever increasing" FCC definitions of broadband service. "We urge the Commission to ensure that our rural citizens benefit from best available technologies with scalability for the long term in the reverse auction -- not simply the network that is cheapest to deploy initially," three dozen rural-oriented groups said in a filing posted Wednesday in docket 10-90 by the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association. The auction should help ensure rural broadband services are reasonably comparable to those found in urban areas, and don't fund technologies that could become obsolete before long. "We are concerned that if the Commission structures the reverse auction so that short-term deployment cost is the primary consideration as compared to better measures of efficiency for consumers and over the lives of the funded networks, it would unfairly give preference to lower-capacity, less robust networks and effectively prevent the deployment of networks comparable to those deployed in urban areas," said the groups, which recognized the need for fiscal responsibility.

Members of the ad hoc Governance and Reliability working group, led by the National Emergency Number Association, reported on a meeting with FCC staff on a previously submitted consensus proposal by the group on improving 911 reliability, said a filing posted Tuesday to docket 14-193. Members of the group discussed its vision on the collaborative management of roles and responsibilities in the changing 911 market, the filing said. Members from associations including the National Association of 911 State Administrators, National Emergency Number Association and USTelecom took questions from staff on the proposal, the group said. Public Safety Bureau Chief David Simpson was among the attendees from the FCC.

Spoofing the FBI's real phone number on victims' caller ID, scammers posing as federal agents have been calling international students and others and demanding "immediate" payments for school loans, back taxes and parking tickets, the Philadelphia division said in a news release. It said FBI offices in 12 states have received reports in which the scammer knows a victim's name, background and personal cellphone number. The bureau said it doesn't call or email people to demand money or threaten arrest.

The FCC will begin taking applications Feb. 18 from interconnected VoIP providers seeking to obtain phone numbers directly from numbering administrators, the Wireline Bureau said Thursday in a public notice in docket 95-116 listed in Friday's Daily Digest. The rules were approved in June (see 1506180060) but didn't take effect until Thursday after they were approved by the Office of Management and Budget and published in the Federal Register. NARUC is challenging the order in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit for giving the rights and obligations of telecom common carriers to unclassified service providers (NARUC v. FCC, No. 15-1497) (see 1601050050).

An appeals court upheld a district court's denial of a motion to dismiss a junk fax lawsuit, citing a recent Supreme Court ruling that found rejected settlement offers aren't grounds for suit dismissal (see 1601200057). "Because the Supreme Court’s decision in Campbell-Ewald Co. v. Gomez, No. 14-857, 2016 WL 228345 (U.S. Jan. 20, 2016), controls the issue in this appeal, the district court’s denial of the motion to dismiss was proper," said a three-judge panel of the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in an order Tuesday (Family Health Chiropractic v. MD On-Line Solutions, No. 15-3508). The 6th Circuit said Family Health Chiropractic had sued MD On-Line Solutions under the Junk Fax Prevention Act, prompting MD On-Line to extend a settlement offer, but FHC rejected the offer and sought class certification. MD On-Line then filed a motion to dismiss, arguing FHC's claims were moot because the rejected settlement offer covered all the relief it sought, said the 6th Circuit, which said the scope of the relief was disputed. "Campbell-Ewald, however, held as a general matter that 'an unaccepted settlement offer or offer of judgment does not moot a plaintiff’s case.' Campbell-Ewald, 2016 WL 228345, at *8. Thus, even if MD On- Line offered complete relief to FHC, FHC’s lack of acceptance of that offer means that this case remains a live case or controversy under Article III," the 6th Circuit said. It affirmed the decision of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan to not dismiss the case.

AT&T received nearly 143,000 demands for customer information from federal, state and local criminal and civil government agencies for the second half of 2015, about 2,000 fewer requests than during the first half, it said in a transparency report Tuesday. During the period, the company said, it acquired DirecTV, which has been included in the report but accounts for less 1 percent of total demands received by AT&T. Of the demands for the second half, more than 105,000 were subpoenas, more than 18,700 were general court orders and more than 19,000 were search warrants or probable cause court orders. AT&T said it rejected or challenged nearly 2,500 demands while providing partial or no information on more than 35,000. The company also said it provided more than 38,000 "location demands," nearly 63,000 emergency requests, and a range of 500 to 999 requests for national security letters. Due to a required six-month delay in reporting Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act information order requests, AT&T said it received between 0 and 499 FISA orders for both content and noncontent during the first half of 2015.

Fred Campbell launched a new venture -- Tech Knowledge, he said in an email Monday. “The interconnection of virtually all technologies through a government-regulated Internet of things suggests a more holistic approach to tech policy is becoming necessary.” Campbell said he closed his former group, the Center for Boundless Innovation in Technology. Last month, Wireless 20/20 said it hired him as senior policy adviser (see 1601190052).