Biennial 

Report 

to Congress 

Under the Do Not Call Registry 

Fee Extension Act of 2007 

Federal Trade Commission 

December 2017 
 

Do-Not-Call Registry Fee Extension Act of 2007 

Federal Trade Commission 

Biennial Report to Congress 

Reporting on Fiscal Years 2016-2017 

I. Report Overview 

In February of 2008, Congress passed the Do-Not-Call Registry Fee Extension Act of 

2007 (“Fee Extension Act”),1

 requiring this biennial report on the National Do Not Call Registry 

(“Registry”). In compliance with the Fee Extension Act, this Report contains a summary of the 

current operations of the Registry, the impact on the Registry of new telecommunication 

technologies, and the impact of the established business relationship exception in our 

enforcement efforts. 

The Registry currently has over 229 million active registrations. During FY 2017, the 

Registry increased by another 3.8 million phone numbers. Over 18,000 sellers, telemarketers, 

and exempt organizations subscribed to access the Registry in FY 2017, and 2,259 of those 

entities paid fees totaling more than $12.6 million. 

II. Introduction 

The Registry has been in operation since the summer of 2003.2 Consumers continue to 

register their telephone numbers, verify registration of numbers, and submit complaints of 

suspected violations at a high rate. During the last 14 years, the Registry has also successfully 

served businesses, as they accessed the Registry, and law enforcement, as they investigated 

violations of the Do Not Call rules. The FTC continues to look for and make improvements to 

the system to better serve consumers, telemarketers, and law enforcers while maintaining the 

efficient management and accuracy of the Registry. FTC staff continues to work closely with the 

contractor overseeing the Registry to ensure that the integrity of the Registry is maintained. 

The Fee Extension Act required the FTC, in consultation with the Federal 

Communications Commission (“FCC”), to first report to Congress on the Registry by December 

31, 2009, and biennially thereafter. Specifically, the Fee Extension Act requires that the FTC’s 

report provide the following information: 

 the number of consumers who have placed their telephone number(s) on the 

Registry; 

 the number of persons paying fees for access to the Registry and the amount of 

such fees; 

 the impact on the Registry of 

o the five-year re-registration requirement; 

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o new telecommunication technology; 

o number portability and abandoned telephone numbers; and 

 the impact of the established business relationship exception on businesses and 

consumers. 

This biennial Report provides an overview of the operation of the Registry for FY 2016 and 

2017. 

III. Number of Consumers Who Placed Their Telephone Numbers on the National 

Registry 

Americans continue to utilize the Registry. In the first four days following the launch of 

the Registry on June 27, 2003, more than 10 million numbers were registered. As of September 

30, 2003, a total of 51,968,777 telephone numbers had been registered. With each fiscal year, 

the number has steadily increased. By the end of FY 2016, the number of active registrations 

was 226,001,288. As of September 30, 2017, the Registry had 229,816,164 active registrations.3 

IV. Number of Entities Paying Fees for Access to the National Registry 

In FY 2016, a total of 2,353 entities paid fees totaling $12,922,293 for access to the 

Registry. In FY 2017, a total of 2,259 entities paid fees totaling $12,625,573 for access to the 

Registry.4

 In addition, certain entities can access data from the Registry without having to pay a 

fee. These include entities that access five or fewer area codes of data in a year, as well as 

exempt organizations (such as charitable organizations) that are not required to access the 

Registry to comply with do-not-call requirements under federal law, but voluntarily access the 

Registry to avoid calling consumers who do not wish to receive calls.5 In FY 2016, 17,634 

entities subscribed to access five or fewer area codes at no charge, and 503 entities claiming 

“exempt organization” status obtained free access. In FY 2017, 15,536 entities subscribed to 

access five or fewer area codes at no charge, and 543 entities claiming “exempt organization” 

status obtained free access. 

V. Impact on the National Registry of the Five-Year Re-Registration Requirement, 

New Telecommunications Technology, and Number Portability and Abandoned 

Telephone Numbers 

A. Five-Year Re-Registration Requirement 

When the Registry was first implemented in 2003, registrations were scheduled to expire 

after five years. Out of concern that the expiration of numbers on the Registry would be 

detrimental to consumers, the FTC, in the fall of 2007, pledged not to drop any numbers from the 

Registry, pending final Congressional action.6

 The following February, Congress passed the Do 

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Not Call Improvement Act of 2007 (“DNCIA”), eliminating the automatic removal of numbers 

from the Registry.7 

At the time the DNCIA was passed in February 2008, no registrations had yet expired, 

because the first registrations were made in late June 2003, less than five years earlier. 

Consequently, no consumers ever had to re-register their numbers. The FTC continues to believe 

that eliminating the re-registration requirement has not decreased the accuracy of the Registry, 

but that it has enabled consumers to maintain their right to privacy without interruption and made 

it possible to avoid the cost associated with educating consumers about the need to re-register. 

B. New Telecommunications Technology 

The FTC also continues to track how technology affects the Registry and the consumers 

and telemarketers who access it. Advancements in technology have increased the number of 

illegal telemarketing calls made to telephone numbers on the Registry. For example, Voice Over 

Internet Protocol (VoIP) technology allows callers, including law-breakers, to make higher 

volumes of calls inexpensively from anywhere in the world. Technological developments also 

allow illegal telemarketers to easily fake the caller ID information that accompanies their calls, 

which allows them to conceal their identity from consumers and law enforcement. In 2017, 

reports of “neighborhood” caller ID spoofing, where the caller displays a caller ID number with 

the same area code and exchange as the called party, have also increased. Further, many 

telemarketers use automated dialing technology to make calls that deliver prerecorded messages 

(commonly referred to as “robocalls”), which allow violators to make very high volumes of 

illegal calls without significant expense. The net effect of these technological developments is 

that individuals and companies who do not care about complying with the Registry or other 

telemarketing laws are able to make more illegal telemarketing calls cheaply and in a manner 

that makes it difficult for the FTC and other law enforcement agencies to find them. As a result, 

consumer complaints about illegal calls—especially robocalls—have increased significantly. In 

the fourth quarter of 2009, the FTC received approximately 63,000 complaints about illegal 

robocalls each month. That number has more than quintupled—in FY 2017, the FTC received 

an average of more than 375,000 robocall complaints per month. In the year since August 1, 

2016, the Federal Communications Commission, which also regulates telemarketing and 

robocalls, received nearly 185,000 complaints about calls that consumers did not want. 

To combat the technologies that telemarketers use to make illegal calls, FTC staff has 

undertaken a number of initiatives, described below, designed to spur the development and 

availability of technology that will protect consumers from illegal calls. FTC staff have worked 

closely with industry groups, academic experts, and counterparts at federal, state, and 

international government bodies to encourage the development of new technologies and 

telecommunications standards to combat illegal calls. 

The FTC has held four public challenges designed to spur private sector development of 

technological solutions that will stop illegal telemarketing calls. The FTC held its first public 

challenge in conjunction with its 2012 Robocall Summit, offering a $50,000 prize to the 

individual or small team who proposed the best technological solution that blocks robocalls on 

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consumers’ landlines and mobile phones. After reviewing 798 submissions, the FTC announced 

three winning solutions on April 2, 2013.8 One of the winners, “NomoRobo,” was on the market 

and available to consumers by October 2013—just 6 months after being named one of the 

winners. NomoRobo also reports blocking over 287 million calls, is being offered directly to 

consumers by a number of telecommunications providers, and is now available as an app on 

iPhones.9

 Following on the success of the first challenge, the FTC conducted its second contest, 

“Zapping Rachel,” in August 2014, where it awarded $17,000 in prizes to five winners who 

developed solutions that improved telephone honeypots—a system of phone lines that collect 

information and data about illegal calling patterns.10 In 2015, the FTC conducted two more 

challenges: “DetectaRobo” and “Robocalls: Humanity Strikes Back.” The FTC held 

“DetectaRobo” in conjunction with the 2015 National Day of Civic Hacking in June 2015, and 

asked contestants to create predictive algorithms that can identify robocalls.11 “Robocalls: 

Humanity Strikes Back” followed, in August 2015, and challenged contestants to build solutions 

that not only block robocalls from reaching consumers, but enable consumers to forward those 

unwanted robocalls to a crowd-sourced honeypot so that law enforcement and industry 

stakeholders can use the data collected.12 Winners for the 2015 challenge were announced on 

August 17, 2015.13 

The challenges contributed to a shift in the development and availability of technological 

solutions in this area, particularly call-blocking and call-filtering products. A number of voice 

service providers now offer call-blocking or call-filtering products to some or all of their 

customers.14 In addition, there are a growing number of free or low-cost apps available for 

download on wireless devices that offer call-blocking and call-filtering solutions.15 

The FCC has also looked to call blocking as a means of combating illegal robocalls. It 

has worked with the industry-led Robocall Strike Force, which included representatives from 

providers of traditional landline, mobile, and VoIP services, handset manufacturers, operating 

system developers, and VoIP gateway providers.16 The Strike Force has said that “robocalls are 

best addressed in a holistic manner through deployment of a wide variety of tools by a broad 

range of stakeholders” that includes industry blocking of calls.17 In its October 26, 2016 report, 

the Strike Force specifically asked the FTC to provide guidance on when providers may block a 

call that the provider believes is illegal. The FCC’s Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau 

addressed one of the Strike Force’s requests in 2016 by clarifying that voice service providers 

may block calls using a spoofed Caller ID number if the number’s subscriber requests that they 

do so.18 The FCC is currently conducting a rulemaking proceeding in which it is considering 

ways to enable the blocking of illegal robocalls by voice service providers.19 Another FCC 

rulemaking proceeding focuses on how to facilitate the authentication of a call’s originating 

phone number, as a way to defeat deceptive caller ID spoofing.20 

The FTC and the FCC also share information to help facilitate technological solutions, 

such as call blocking, and have taken steps to increase the quality and quantity of shared 

information. To that end, on September 28, 2016, the FTC updated its Do Not Call complaint 

intake process to provide a drop-down list of possible call categories for consumers to choose 

from to make it easier for consumers to report the topic of the call and to help the FTC identify 

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trends. The top six topics selected by consumers are the same for Do Not Call complaints and 

robocall complaints: 

Reducing your debt (credit cards, mortgage, student loans) 

Dropped call or no message 

Vacation & timeshares 

Warranties & protection plans 

Calls pretending to be government, businesses, or family and friends 

Medical & prescriptions 

In addition to refining our complaint intake process, the FTC recently increased the 

amount and frequency of consumer complaint data that it makes publicly available.21 Beginning 

in August 2017, when consumers report Do Not Call or robocall violations to the FTC, the phone 

numbers consumers report are released each business day. The FTC is also releasing the 

following consumer-reported data: the date and time the unwanted call was received, the topic of 

the call, and whether the call was a robocall.22 The FCC, likewise, releases consumer complaint 

data daily.23 The complaint data includes information provided by the consumer, including the 

date and time of the call, the Caller ID number, and whether the call was prerecorded or live. By 

making this available data more up-to-date and robust, the FTC and the FCC seek to help 

telecommunications carriers and other industry partners that are implementing call-blocking 

solutions for consumers that choose to use a call-blocking service. 

FTC staff will continue its efforts to spur technological advancements that will protect 

consumers from unwanted calls. 

C. Number Portability and Abandoned Telephone Numbers 

According to FCC regulations, people changing service providers in the same geographic 

area are able to retain their phone number.24 As the FTC developed procedures to identify 

numbers to remove from the Registry, the FTC considered how to identify these ported numbers 

and differentiate them from abandoned or disconnected numbers. To increase the likelihood that 

ported numbers are not removed but abandoned numbers are, the FTC’s contractor first identifies 

the numbers that have been designated as new connections in the compiled disconnection and 

reassignment data. A number is designated as disconnected and reassigned for purposes of 

removing it from the Registry only if neither the name nor the address for the new account match 

the name or address associated with the previous account for that number. 

Consequently, the only numbers removed from the Registry are those that have been 

disconnected (or abandoned) and then reconnected to a different account holder at a different 

address. This process, which is performed monthly, ensures that numbers that have been ported 

are not removed, but numbers that truly have been abandoned are deleted. 

VII. Impact of Established Business Relationship Exception on Consumers and 

Businesses 

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The Telemarketing Sales Rule (TSR) and the FCC’s rules contain exemptions that permit 

a seller or telemarketer to call a person who has listed his or her telephone numbers on the 

Registry if the call is to a person with whom the seller has an “established business 

relationship.”25 An established business relationship under the TSR and the FCC rules is a 

relationship based on (i) the consumer’s purchase, rental, or lease of the seller’s goods or 

services, or a financial transaction between the consumer and seller, within the 18 months 

immediately preceding the date of a telemarketing call; or (ii) a consumer’s inquiry or 

application regarding a product or service offered by the seller within the three months 

immediately preceding the date of a telemarketing call.26 This exception allows sellers and their 

telemarketers to call customers who have recently made purchases or made payments, and to 

return calls to prospective customers who have made inquiries, even if their telephone numbers 

are on the Registry. On November 18, 2015, the Commission amended the TSR to make clear 

that sellers and telemarketers have the burden of proof to demonstrate the existence of an 

established business relationship.27 

Many businesses rely on this exemption to conduct telemarketing campaigns directed at 

recent or long-time customers, or consumers who have expressed an interest in becoming 

customers. Many consumers, however, perceive telemarketing calls that fall within this 

exemption to be inconsistent with the Registry because the consumers are unaware of the 

exception or do not realize that they have a relationship with the seller that falls within the 

definition of an established business relationship. 

Such perceptions by consumers are especially likely when the relationship between the 

consumer and the seller arises from a brief, one-time transaction, or when the seller identified in 

the telemarketing call and the seller with whom the consumer has a relationship are part of the 

same legal entity, but are perceived by consumers to be different because they use different 

names or are marketing different products. Both the FTC and the FCC have stated that the issue 

of whether calls by or on behalf of sellers who are affiliates and subsidiaries of an entity with 

which a consumer has an established business relationship fall within the exception depends on 

consumer expectations. The FTC characterizes the issue as follows: “would consumers likely be 

surprised by that call and find it inconsistent with having placed their telephone number on the 

national ‘do-not-call’ registry?”28 

For both the FTC and the FCC, the factors to be considered in this analysis include 

whether the subsidiary’s or affiliate’s goods or services are similar to the seller’s, and whether 

the subsidiary’s or affiliate’s name is identical or similar to the seller’s name. The greater the 

similarity between the nature and type of goods or services sold by the seller and any subsidiary 

or affiliate and the greater the similarity in identity between the seller and any subsidiary or 

affiliate, the more likely it is that the call will fall within the established business relationship 

exemption.29 

Some businesses, seeking to circumvent the Registry, have sought to exploit the 

established business relationship exemption by making calls to persons who have not had the 

requisite contact with the seller. For example, some marketers claiming a business relationship 

have improperly placed telemarketing calls to consumers after acquiring the consumers’ 

6
 

telephone numbers from others. So-called “lead generators” collect information on consumer 

interests through web advertising, by offering coupons or samples, or simply by “cold calling” 

consumers in order to determine whether the consumer has any interest in a particular product or 

service, such as debt relief or home alarms. Lead generators responsible for these so-called “call 

verified,” “permission-based,” or “opt-in” leads” often fail to remove numbers listed on the 

Registry before calling consumers. Lead generating companies that have engaged in this type of 

“cold calling” have agreed to pay civil penalties to settle charges that their calls violated the 

TSR.30 At the same time, some telemarketers and sellers have acquired leads from lead 

generators and used them in telemarketing campaigns without screening the numbers to remove 

those listed on the Registry. In this way, a single sales pitch can produce multiple illegal calls, 

generating one or more calls from both the lead generators and the telemarketer. 

Telephone calls from telemarketers to phone numbers provided by lead generators 

generally do not fall within the established business relationship exception because, while the 

consumers may have a relationship with the lead generator, they do not have an established 

business relationship with the seller who has purchased the leads. Unless the consumer inquired 

into the services of a specified seller, or the lead generator made disclosures that would alert the 

consumer that he or she should expect telemarketing calls from the seller as a result of his or her 

communications with the lead generator, the seller cannot claim that it has a relationship with the 

consumer such that it can ignore the consumer’s request not to receive telemarketing calls. In 

several enforcement actions, businesses that made telephone calls to consumers on the Registry 

after acquiring the consumers’ names from a lead generator agreed to pay civil penalties to settle 

charges that their calls violated the TSR.31

Other businesses have sought to circumvent the Registry by utilizing sweepstakes entry 

forms as a way to exploit the established business relationship exemption, arguing that the 

submission of a sweepstakes entry form creates an established business relationship for purposes 

of the TSR. The TSR, however, does not permit companies to circumvent the Registry in this 

manner because a sweepstakes entry form does not create an established business relationship for 

purposes of the TSR. Companies have agreed to pay civil penalties for making illegal calls that 

relied upon sweepstake entry forms as a basis for making telemarketing calls.32

VIII. Conclusion

The Registry exists to provide consumers a choice whether to receive most telemarketing

calls. It is important that the FTC work to keep it accessible and effective for consumers and 

telemarketers. As new technology provides new challenges, we actively seek to address and 

confront these challenges. This includes encouraging private industry, other government entities, 

academia, and other interested parties to work towards solutions and create new strategies. 

We publish an Annual Do Not Call Registry Data Book that gives a substantial amount of 

detail regarding registration numbers and other statistical information regarding the Registry. 

The 2017 Data Book can be found at www.ftc.gov/donotcall-databook2017. FTC staff continues 

to work closely with the contractor 

−7−
 

 

overseeing the Registry to ensure that the integrity of the Registry is maintained and that 

consumers’ preferences not to receive most telemarketing calls are honored. 

ENDNOTES 

1. Pub. L. No. 110-188, 122 Stat. 635 (2008) as codified at 15 U.S.C. § 6154. 

2. On January 29, 2003, the FTC issued the final amendments to the Telemarketing Sales 

Rule (“TSR”) that, inter alia, established the National Do Not Call Registry. 16 C.F.R. § 310. 

3. These totals exclude those telephone numbers that have been deleted by consumers or 

eliminated as part of the FTC’s process for removing disconnected and reassigned numbers from 

the Registry. A telephone number that was registered more than once between FY 2003 - FY 

2015 is counted only once in these totals. 

4. As established by the Fee Extension Act, in FY 2017, the annual fee per area code was 

$61 (with the first five area codes provided at no cost) with the maximum annual fee for 

accessing the entire Registry being $16,714. 

5. Such “exempt” organizations include entities that engage in outbound telephone calls to 

consumers that do not involve the sale of goods or services, such as calls to induce charitable 

contributions, to raise funds for political purposes, or to conduct surveys. They also include 

entities who are engaged solely in calls to persons with whom they have an established business 

relationship or from whom they have obtained express written agreement to call, pursuant to the 

Amended TSR, 16 C.F.R. § 310.4(b)(1)(iii)(B)(1) or (2), and who do not access the Registry for 

any other purpose. 

6. See FTC Press Release, FTC Pledges Not to Drop Any Numbers From Do Not Call 

Registry, Pending Final Congressional or Agency Action on Whether to Make Registration 

Permanent (Oct. 23, 2007), available at http://www.ftc.gov/opa/2007/10/dnctestimony.shtm. 

7. Pub. L. No. 110-187, 122 Stat. 633 (2008). 

8. See Press Release, FTC Announces Robocall Challenge Winners; Proposals Would Use 

Call Filter Software to Reduce Illegal Calls (Apr. 2, 2013), available at 

http:/www.ftc.gov/opa/2013/04/robocall.shtm. 

9. See https://www.nomorobo.com/ (last visited Oct. 12, 2017) and Robocall Strike Force, 

Robocall Strike Force Report at 17-18 (April 28, 2017), 

https://www.fcc.gov/file/12311/download (“Strike Force Report II”) at 17-18. 

8
 

 

10. See Press Release, FTC Announces Winners of “Zapping Rachel” Robocall Contest 

(Aug. 28, 2014), available at https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/press-releases/2014/08/ftcannounces-winners-zapping-rachel-robocall-contest. 

11. See Fed. Trade Comm’n, DetectaRobo, https://www.ftc.gov/detectarobo (last visited June 

2, 2015); Press Release, FTC Announces New Robocall Contests to Combat Illegal Automated 

Calls (Mar. 4, 2015), available at https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/press-releases/2015/03/ftcannounces-new-robocall-contests-combat-illegal-automated. 

12. See Fed. Trade Comm’n, Robocalls: Humanity Strikes Back, 

https://www.ftc.gov/strikeback; Press Release, FTC Announces New Robocall Contests to 

Combat Illegal Automated Calls (Mar. 4, 2015), available at https://www.ftc.gov/newsevents/press-releases/2015/03/ftc-announces-new-robocall-contests-combat-illegal-automated. 

13. Press Release, FTC Awards $25,000 Top Cash Price for Contest-Winning Mobile App 

That Blocks Illegal Robocalls (Aug. 17, 2015), available at https://www.ftc.gov/newsevents/press-releases/2015/08/ftc-awards-25000-top-cash-prize-contest-winning-mobile-appblocks. 

14. For example, in late 2016 AT&T launched “Call Protect”, which is a product available to 

many AT&T wireless customers that blocks fraud calls and flags others as potential “spam.” See 

http://about.att.com/story/att_call_protect.html. T-Mobile offers its wireless customers two free 

products, “Scam ID” and “Scam Block”, that flag and block unwanted calls. See http://explore.tmobile.com/callprotection (last visited Sept. 22, 2017). Verizon offers a product called “Caller 

Name ID” to its wireless customers that also attempts to flag and block unwanted calls. See 

https://www.verizonwireless.com/solutions-and-services/caller-name-id/. In addition, a number 

of carriers make Nomorobo available to their VoIP or cable line customers. See, e.g., 

https://www.fcc.gov/consumers/guides/stop-unwanted-calls-texts-and-faxes (listing available 

call blocking resources from a number of wireline providers) (last visited Sept. 22, 2017). 

15. The Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association (CTIA) maintains a list of some 

of the available call blocking apps, both for iOS devices (https://www.ctia.org/consumertips/robocalls/ios-robocall-blocking) and for Android devices (https://www.ctia.org/consumertips/robocalls/android-robocall-blocking) (last visited Sept. 22, 2017). 

16. The Robocall Strike Force Report is available at https://transition.fcc.gov/cgb/RobocallStrike-Force-Final-Report.pdf. 

17. Robocall Strike Force Report at 25. 

18. Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau Clarification on Blocking Unwanted 

Robocalls, Public Notice, 31 FCC Rcd 10961 (CGB 2016). 

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19. Advanced Methods to Target and Eliminate Unlawful Robocalls, Notice of Proposed 

Rulemaking and Notice of Inquiry, 32 FCC Rcd 2306, 2306-07 (2017); Advanced Methods to 

Target and Eliminate Unlawful Robocalls, CG Docket No. 17-59, Report and Order and Further 

Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, FCC 17-151 (adopted Nov. 16, 2017). 

20. Call Authentication Trust Anchor, Notice of Inquiry, 32 FCC Rcd 5988 (2017). 

21. See Press Release, FTC Escalates the Fight against Illegal Robocalls Using Consumer 

Complaints to Aid Industry Call-Blocking Solution (Aug. 1, 2017), available at 

https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/press-releases/2017/08/ftc-escalates-fight-against-illegalrobocalls-using-consumer. The complaint data is available at https://www.ftc.gov/siteinformation/open-government/data-sets/do-not-call-data. 

22. In the past, the Commission released a bi-weekly report that published the telephone 

numbers that consumers complained about in their Do Not Call and robocall complaints. 

23. The complaint data is available at https://www.fcc.gov/consumer-help-center-data. 

24. 47 C.F.R. § 52.21(m) and § 52.23. 

25. 16 C.F.R. § 310.4(b)(1)(iii)(B)(2) and § 310.2(q). The FCC’s rules similarly include an 

exemption for live-voice calls to consumers with whom the seller has an established business 

relationship. See 47 C.F.R. § 64.1200(c)(2), (f)(5), and (f)(14)(ii). These exemptions do not 

apply if the person has asked to be on the seller’s “entity-specific” do-not-call list by telling the 

seller or its representatives that he or she does not wish to receive telemarketing calls from the 

seller. See id.§ 64.1200(f)(5)(i). The FCC eliminated the established business relationship 

exemption that applied to prerecorded telemarketing calls to residential lines, effective October 

16, 2013. See Rules and Regulations Implementing the Telephone Consumer Protection Act of 

1991, CG Docket No. 02-278, Report and Order, 27 FCC Rcd 1830, 1845-47, paras. 35-43 

(2012). 

26. See United States v. Columbia House Co., Civ. No. 05C-4064 (N.D. Ill. filed July 14, 

2005). In this case, the company agreed to a settlement after the FTC’s analysis found that its 

telemarketers continued to call former customers after the 18-month period provided by the 

established business relationship exemption had expired. 

27. 16 C.F.R. § 310.4(b)(1)(iii)(B)(2). 

28. See Statement of Basis and Purpose for Final Amended Telemarketing Sales Rule, 68 

Fed. Reg. 4580, 4594 (Jan. 29, 2003). See also 47 C.F.R. § 64.1200(f)(5)(ii) (under the FCC’s 

rules, a consumer’s “established business relationship with a particular business entity does not 

extend to affiliated entities unless the [consumer] would reasonably expect them to be 

included”). 

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29. See Complying with the Telemarketing Sales Rule, at http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/edu/pubs/ 

business/marketing/bus27.shtm. Similarly, the FCC has stated that “affiliates fall within the 

established business relationship exemption only if the consumer would reasonably expect them 

to be included given the nature and type of goods or services offered and the identity of the 

affiliate.” Rules and Regulations Implementing the Telephone Consumer Protection Act of 1991, 

CG Docket No. 02-278, Report and Order, 18 FCC Rcd 14014, 14082-83, para. 117 (2003). 

30. See U.S. v. Consumer Education.info, Inc., 1:16-cv-02692 (D. Col. filed Nov. 1, 2016), 

available at https://www.ftc.gov/enforcement/cases-proceedings/152-3081/consumereducationinfo-inc. 

31. See United States v. Versatile Mktg. Sols., Inc. et al., No. 1:14-cv-10612-PBS (D. Mass. 

filed Mar. 10, 2014); United States v. Central Florida Investments, Inc., Civ. No. 6:09-cv-00104-

PCF-GJK (M.D Fla. filed Jan. 15, 2009); United States v. Ameriquest Mortgage Company, Civ. 

No. 8:07-cv-01304-CJC-MLG (C.D. Cal. filed Nov. 6, 2007). 

32. See United States v. Electric Mobility Corporation, No. 1:11-cv-2218-RMB-KMW 

(D.N.J. filed April 19, 2011); United States v. All in One Vacation Club, L.L.C., No. 6:09-cv103-Orl-31DAB (M.D. Fla. filed Jan. 14, 2009); United States v. Craftmatic Industries, Inc., 

2:07-cv-04652-LDD (E.D. Pa. filed Nov. 6, 2007). 

11
Federal Trade Commission 

ftc.gov