Opinion ID: 172231
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Restriction on Marketing Communications

Text: Apart from the restrictions on the use of TRS Fund proceeds and customer data, the Declaratory Rulings also prohibit or restrict certain marketing communications between TRS providers and customers. The 2007 Declaratory Ruling reiterated an existing prohibition on the use of financial and other incentives for consumers to make TRS calls. 2007 Declaratory Ruling, 22 F.C.C.R. at 20173-74. The FCC noted it continued to discover providers were providing improper incentives to customers. Id. at 20175. These impermissible incentives included calling a consumer and requiring, requesting, or suggesting that the consumer make VRS calls. Id. The 2007 Declaratory Ruling prevented providers from using customer data to in any way attempt to affect or influence, directly or indirectly, their use of relay service. Id. at 20176. The 2008 Declaratory Ruling clarified that this prohibition applies even when a provider does not use customer data to engage in the communication. 2008 Declaratory Ruling, 23 F.C.C.R. at 8998. GoAmerica argues this language is broad enough to block essentially all marketing to customers, since almost all marketing communications suggest the use of a service or are an attempt to influence customer behavior. GoAmerica raises a variety of statutory and constitutional challenges to this restriction on marketing practices. As a threshold matter, however, this court must address whether GoAmerica adequately preserved its challenge to this provision. The FCC argues this court should not hear GoAmerica's challenges to the marketing restrictions because GoAmerica did not give the FCC an opportunity to consider the challenges. Under 47 U.S.C. § 405(a), when the party seeking [] review... relies on questions of fact or law upon which the Commission ... has been afforded no opportunity to pass, a petition for reconsideration is a condition precedent to judicial review. GoAmerica never filed a petition for reconsideration and, the FCC argues, its arguments were never raised before the FCC by any party. As a consequence, the FCC asks this court to dismiss GoAmerica's challenges to the restrictions on marketing practices. The FCC acknowledges the ex parte correspondence from Hands On tangentially addresses the lawfulness of the marketing restrictions, but argues the letter contains no more than the grist of an argument and was insufficient to give the FCC an opportunity to pass on the legal question at hand. See Nw. Ind. Tel. Co. v. F.C.C., 824 F.2d 1205, 1210 n. 8 (D.C.Cir. 1987); Alianza Federal de Mercedes v. F.C.C., 539 F.2d 732, 739 (D.C.Cir.1976). GoAmerica responds that the Hands On ex parte letters sufficiently raised all of the arguments it advances on appeal. It claims the letters gave notice of the legal deficiencies in the 2007 Declaratory Ruling and it points out that an appellate court may consider the same basic argument [as raised before the FCC] in a more polished and imaginative form. Sprint-Nextel Corp. v. F.C.C., 524 F.3d 253, 257 (D.C.Cir.2008) (quotation omitted). The three ex parte letters are substantially similar to each other. They express support for the FCC's regulation of abusive marketing practices, [including] ... contacts made by provider representatives urging VRS consumers to make more calls using a provider's service. The only portion of the 2007 Declaratory Ruling they criticize is the portion ... which prohibits providers from contacting for any reason consumers who have registered with a provider. They then allege the restriction has constitutional, statutory, and policy-based infirmities. The Hands On ex parte letters are almost entirely focused upon the restriction on using customer data to contact customers. The one passing reference to the regulation of marketing practices actually supports the FCC's position. Far from giving the FCC an opportunity to pass on its objections to the abusive marketing practices restriction, the letters indicate Hands On agreed with the restriction. Because GoAmerica did not file a petition for reconsideration, the failure to raise the basis for its legal challenge prevents GoAmerica from obtaining judicial review. 47 U.S.C. § 405(a). GoAmerica's petition for review of the regulation on abusive marketing practices is therefore dismissed.