Every day American consumers report tens of thousands of illegal robocalls to the Federal Trade Commission, and now the FTC is helping put that information to work boosting industry efforts to stop unwanted calls before they reach consumers.

Under a new initiative announced by the FTC, when consumers report Do Not Call or robocall violations to the agency, the robocaller phone numbers consumers provide will be released each day to telecommunications carriers and other industry partners that are implementing call-blocking solutions.

Unwanted and illegal robocalls are the FTC’s number-one complaint category, with more than 1.9 million complaints filed in the first five months of 2017 alone. By reporting illegal robocalls, consumers help law enforcement efforts to stop the violators behind these calls. In addition, under the initiative announced today, the FTC is now taking steps to provide more data, more often to help power the industry solutions that block illegal calls.

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Teaching Suggestions

• Ask students if they have received robocalls and what was their response to such illegal calls?
• Let students debate the issue of whether robocalls should be outlawed.

Discussion Questions

1. Why is the consumer complaint data so crucial for the FTC to call-blocking solutions?
2. How will the FTC attempt to stop unwanted robocalls before they reach consumers?