The Federal Communications Commission has issued a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking that would “closed the lead generator loophole” among other actions, and require consumers’ prior express written consent from a single seller at a time on comparison shopping websites.
The proposal is due to be voted on at the FCC’s next meeting, on December 13.
“Requiring one-to-one consent will end the current practice of consumers receiving robocalls and robotexts from tens, or hundreds, of sellers – numbers that most reasonable consumers would not expect to receive,” the FCC said in its proposal. Furthermore, whatever consent is provided by the consumer, the buyer of that lead must provide a similar service. For example, a consumer giving consent on a car loan site can not receive robocalls or robotexts about loan consolidation, the FCC noted.
The FCC did say that its requirement does not specify how many sellers can be listed on a webpage. With respect to how comparison sites can continue to operate going forward, the FCC offered the following alternatives:
- The website may offer a consumer a check box list that allows the consumer to specifically choose each individual seller that they wish to hear from.
- Alternatively, the comparison shopping website 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 FCC said that closing this loophole will result in “only small additional costs” for comparative shopping websites, but that such practices may lead to greater customer satisfaction, which may actually benefit the sites.