If unregulated, ringless voice mail messages “will likely overwhelm consumers’ voice mail systems
and consumers will have no way to limit, control or stop these messages,” Margot Freeman Saunders, senior counsel at the National Consumer Law Center, wrote in the organization’s comment letter to the Federal Communications Commission on behalf of more than a dozen consumer groups.
have already established that technology similar to ringless voice mail — which delivered mass automated
texts to cellphones — was deemed the same as calls and was covered by the consumer protection law.
The suit said that Mr. Mahoney’s daughter had received similar messages — advertising zero-interest auto financing — and
that neither he nor she had given the company consent.
“The act of depositing a voice mail on a voice mail service without dialing a consumers’ cellular telephone line does not result in the kind of disruptions
to a consumer’s life — dead air calls, calls interrupting consumers at inconvenient times or delivery charges to consumers,” All About the Message wrote.
Josh Justice, chief executive of Stratics Networks, said its technology — which can send out 100 ringless
voice mail messages a minute — had existed for 10 years and had not caused a widespread nuisance.
But he said he did not believe that ringless voice mail needed to be subject to the same regulations as other calls — unless regulators find
that the messages are generating complaints or being used inappropriately.
Even though it started business just last year, one of All About the Message’s customers — an auto
dealer — is already facing a lawsuit involving a consumer who received repeated messages.
