New FCC Rule Limits Lead Generation Texts

The Federal Communications Commission issued a final rule Jan. 26 restricting lead generation by requiring comparison-shopping websites to obtain consumer consent one prospective seller at a time in cases where express written consent is required under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act.

The rule is unequivocal that one-to-one consent is required under the commission’s TCPA consent rules and that websites can use a variety of means for collecting consent for sellers to comply with the consent rule. As an example, the FCC explains that a website may offer a “check box list that allows the consumer to specifically choose each individual seller that they wish to hear from or may offer the consumer a clickthrough link to a specific business so that the business itself may gather express written consent from the consumer directly.”

The new rule does not include a previously proposed requirement that within 24 hours of receipt, callers must honor company-specific do-not-call and revocation-of-consent requests.