The Federal Communications Commission has put off implementing new restrictions on outbound fax marketing until Jan. 1, 2005. They were to have gone into effect Aug. 25.
The postponement means that marketers won’t have to get a recipient’s permission to send a fax in writing. Instead, they will be allowed to send faxes to customers with whom they have business relationships, at least until 2005. Existing rules that prohibit sending unsolicited faxes to targets remain in effect.
The FCC decided to delay things after determining that “many organizations may need additional time to secure this written permission from individuals and businesses to whom they fax advertisements.” The agency also indicated that it would review additional petitions for reconsideration.
The new rules themselves have not changed. Marketers are still required to obtain written permission to send fax messages from recipients, along with the number to which they may be sent.
“What’s going on now is a huge collective sigh of relief,” said Jim Conway, vice president of government affairs for the Direct Marketing Association. “We received an incredible amount of calls and e-mail. We were focusing on the do-not-call list, and marketers were hearing that you couldn’t fax a customer even when the customer asks you to.”
The DMA also wants the FCC to loosen the rules so that marketers can more easily collect permissions electronically. “We need some standards. We want to make sure those standards do not complicate things. [We also want to] ensure the integrity of the digital signature,” said Conway.
The Washington-based American Society of Association Executives (ASAE) was one of dozens of organizations that filed requests for either clarification or a stay of the new fax rules.
“ASAE is delighted that we were able to accomplish the stay,” said CEO John H. Graham. “That gives us a 15-month window to resolve the issue through legislation. We will be looking at the legislative front and determining where and with whom we can best make our case.”
According to Graham, the FCC would prevent groups like ASAE from faxing their members. “We want to be able to communicate with people who [wish to] become members of an association, and shouldn’t be hindered,” he said.
Within the ruling that postponed implementing the fax restrictions, the FCC also rejected a request by the American Teleservices Association (ATA) to postpone revisions to the Telephone Consumer Protection Act.
“It was clear that the fax rules were written in haste, which is why the industry backlashed against this,” said Tim Searcy, the ATA’s executive director. “The FCC had to push back the rules to give everyone a chance to assess their impact.”
Searcy said that, on the one hand, the agency “bowed to pressure for good business reasons. On [the other] it continues with the federal do-not-call list, which is fraught with constitutional, operational and economic impact issues.”
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