Tag: DNC

State Attorneys General Are Driving the Next Wave of TCPA Enforcement

State attorneys general are emerging as the most aggressive TCPA enforcers in 2026, even as the Federal Communications Commission proposes to roll back several federal telemarketing rules. The bifurcation is reshaping the compliance landscape for businesses that operate outbound calling and texting programs nationally.

What’s happening at the state level

Several developments over the past year point to a coordinated escalation in state-level TCPA enforcement.

New York increased the maximum fine for violations of its state Do-Not-Call list to $20,000 per call — a substantial increase over the prior cap. Mississippi enacted H.B. 1225, shifting enforcement of its state No-Call program to the Office of the Attorney General. Eleven other states have updated their telemarketing statutes within the past 18 months to add new restrictions, expand definitions, or increase penalty ceilings.

Beyond individual state actions, all 50 state attorneys general and the D.C. AG have formed the Anti-Robocall Litigation Task Force. The task force coordinates intelligence-sharing across state offices and has begun pursuing joint enforcement actions against companies alleged to violate FCC and state rules.

Why the state activity is increasing

Several factors are converging. Federal TCPA enforcement under the current FCC has shifted toward a lighter regulatory posture, with the agency proposing to scrap several long-standing rules. State officials, including consumer-protection chiefs in many AG offices, have moved to fill the perceived enforcement gap. The 51-state task force structure provides a coordinating mechanism that previously didn’t exist for telemarketing enforcement, allowing states to mobilize at greater scale than individual AG offices could on their own.

State legislatures have also been active. The number of states with active state-level DNC lists has grown to 14, several of them with provisions stricter than the federal counterpart. New York, Florida, California, and Massachusetts have all advanced legislation tightening state-level TCPA-equivalent rules within the past two years.

Implications for businesses

Companies operating outbound calling and texting programs face a meaningfully more complex compliance landscape than they did even a year ago. The federal rulebook, which has historically been the binding constraint for most national operators, is loosening. The state-by-state rulebook is tightening. The combined effect is a fragmented compliance environment in which a single program can satisfy federal rules while still violating two or three state-level requirements.

Practically, that means three things. First, businesses need to build state-aware compliance into their outbound operations — quiet-hours rules, consent rules, DNC scope, and penalty exposure all vary by state and need to be applied based on the called party’s state. Second, lead-source data needs to include accurate state-of-residence information so the right state rules can be applied. Third, internal compliance and legal functions need to monitor state AG enforcement signaling and state legislative activity, not just FCC rulemakings.

What to watch

The Anti-Robocall Litigation Task Force is expected to announce additional coordinated enforcement actions over the coming year. Watch for high-profile multistate cases that may signal the task force’s enforcement priorities and theories of liability. Several states — including Texas, Pennsylvania, and Illinois — have telemarketing legislation pending that could further raise the state-level compliance burden if enacted.

Businesses should also watch for state AG amicus filings in pending federal TCPA cases. State AGs have begun weighing in on federal court cases that touch on state-law issues, both as a way of shaping precedent and as a signal of enforcement priorities.

Many businesses with outbound calling or texting programs have begun screening prospect lists against known TCPA plaintiffs as part of their standard compliance routine. Services such as TCPALitigatorList.com maintain databases of consumers who have previously filed TCPA lawsuits, allowing companies to flag and remove those numbers before any outreach is sent.

The strategic takeaway

The TCPA compliance landscape in 2026 is no longer dominated by the federal layer. State AG offices and state legislatures are now driving the most consequential rule changes and the most aggressive enforcement. Businesses that view TCPA compliance as a federal-only problem are setting themselves up for state-level enforcement surprise in the next 12 to 18 months.

Sources: Searchbug; Hollingsworth; ClickPoint.

FCC Proposes Sweeping Cuts to Telemarketing Rules: What Businesses Need to Know

The Federal Communications Commission has put the most consequential package of telemarketing-rule changes in years on the table, proposing to eliminate or significantly streamline rules that have governed business outbound calling and texting for two decades.

What’s in the proposal

The FCC’s Further Notice of Proposed Rulemaking targets several long-standing requirements under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act and the federal Do-Not-Call regime. The most prominent target is the “revoke all” rule, a provision that would have required businesses to treat any opt-out request as applying to every type of call and text from that business, on every topic, across every channel.

That rule was originally scheduled to take effect in April 2026. In January, the FCC pushed the effective date back to January 31, 2027 to give the agency room to reconsider. The FNPRM now proposes scrapping the rule entirely, on the basis that consumer-protection goals can be achieved through narrower, channel-specific revocations without imposing the operational burden of unifying every opt-out into a single record.

The FNPRM also proposes to eliminate the requirement that businesses maintain their own internal Do-Not-Call lists, eliminate the rule that prevents telemarketers from “abandoning” calls before 15 seconds or four rings, and modernize the callback-number requirements to focus on a working, opt-out-capable number rather than rigid format prescriptions.

Why this is happening now

The FCC’s posture reflects a broader shift in federal regulatory philosophy under current leadership. Several of the rules on the chopping block were adopted in the prior administration as part of an aggressive consumer-protection push. The current commission has signaled a preference for lighter federal mandates, more reliance on industry self-policing, and greater deference to state-level enforcement.

Industry groups have been lobbying for revoke-all elimination since the rule was first finalized, citing the engineering complexity of building unified cross-channel consent systems and the relatively limited consumer-protection upside compared to channel-level opt-outs that already exist.

What it means for businesses

Companies that operate outbound calling, texting, or marketing programs should expect a federal rulebook that is somewhat lighter and considerably clearer once the FNPRM is finalized. The cost of compliance with the most operationally onerous provisions — revoke-all, in particular — would drop substantially, freeing engineering and compliance resources that have been building unified opt-out infrastructure.

The flip side is that state attorneys general have made clear they intend to fill any federal retreat with more aggressive state-level enforcement. Mississippi has shifted enforcement of its state DNC program to its Attorney General’s office; New York has raised the maximum fine for state DNC violations to $20,000 per call. The 51-state attorney general Anti-Robocall Litigation Task Force continues to coordinate on enforcement against egregious actors. Businesses operating nationally should expect to monitor an increasingly fragmented state-level rulebook even as the federal one simplifies.

What to watch

The FNPRM will be published in the Federal Register, followed by a public comment period, agency revisions, and a final rule. The full process typically runs six to twelve months. After finalization, industry groups, consumer-advocacy organizations, or state attorneys general may file legal challenges. Realistically, businesses will not see operational changes until late 2026 or into 2027.

In the meantime, the prudent course is to maintain existing compliance programs as designed, file comments on the FNPRM through industry associations or directly with the FCC, and build state-by-state monitoring into compliance operations to track the increasingly active state enforcement environment.

Many businesses with outbound calling or texting programs have begun screening prospect lists against known TCPA plaintiffs as part of their standard compliance routine. Services such as TCPALitigatorList.com maintain databases of consumers who have previously filed TCPA lawsuits, allowing companies to flag and remove those numbers before any outreach is sent.

Sources: Privacy World; National Law Review; Kelley Drye.