In the fast-paced world of marketing and lead generation, professionals must stay informed about evolving telecommunication policies, particularly regarding spam caller notifications. Recent discussions, notably at the VON Evolution conference, have highlighted critical concerns and proposed solutions in this area, according to a published report.
The core issue revolves around the Federal Communications Commission’s STIR/SHAKEN framework. This initiative mandates service providers to authenticate calls to combat spam and scam calls. However, this well-intentioned effort faces a significant challenge: important calls are often mislabeled as spam.
Ron Thorton, a consulting engineer at United Office, emphasized that third-party analytics companies often determine a call’s spam status based on calling patterns. This approach can mistakenly tag crucial calls from institutions like banks or doctor’s offices as spam due to their persistent calling patterns.
This mislabeling leads to a broader problem – a decrease in trust in phone calls. Jeff Pulver, founder of VON Evolution, pointed out that this erosion of trust is detrimental to the industry. When callers see a spam tag, they’re likely to ignore potentially important calls, hampered by incomplete caller information.
To address this, Thorton suggests a change in practice. Terminating carriers, responsible for delivering calls to consumers, should not entirely replace the caller’s identification. Instead, they should provide enough information for recipients to make informed decisions, even when tagging potential spam calls.
Glenn Richards, a partner at Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman LLP, echoed the need for a balanced approach in robocall enforcement. There’s a fine line between stopping fraudulent calls and inadvertently blocking legitimate, necessary communications.
The FCC’s recent moves, including leveraging AI to detect robocalls and stricter enforcement against providers with lax robocall regulations, are steps in the right direction. However, industry professionals believe that more can be done. For instance, establishing a feedback loop between terminating and originating providers can help identify and rectify situations where legitimate calls are mislabeled as spam.
For marketing and lead generation professionals, the takeaway is clear: Stay alert to regulatory changes and technological advancements in call authentication. Understanding and adapting to these dynamics is crucial for maintaining effective communication channels and ensuring that critical calls are not lost in the noise of spam labeling.