aims, that speaks to that. second, increasing the resilience of the critical infrastructure and included in our electoral system or 50 plus electoral systems and the technology behind them and to find ways to reduce the impact in the instances of fake news are important not just because of russia but because these dynamics exist within our country. and other actors, including terrorist groups and small states that may wish a sale like north korea will want to exploit them and their capabilities are coming up spot we can't overlook that defense side as well. >> tom, any final? >> i concur on the defensive side i think we need to start thinking moon shot and incentivizing the research that says we've put certain systems -- we've moved information over a very short period of time historically 25-year period -- we'll leave this conversation here and go live to

a forum on possible laeger to action to protect consumers and empower telephone service frofrds block illegal robo calls in the is hosted by the federal communications commission and federal trade commission. >> i'm patrick weber, chief of the consumer governmental affairs bureau here at the fcc. we are very pleased to join forces with the ftc to further the fight against illegal robocalls and caller id spoofing. unwanted calls are a major complaint to the fcc and ftc and we look forward to the policy discussions today that will address ways to protect consumers and encourage the development of private sector solutions. this morning we will hear remarks from fcc and ftc leadership. we will also hear from a diverse group of speakers on three moderate the panels focusing on challenges facing consumers and industried to td, recent regulatory and enforcement efforts, solutions and tools for

consumers. today's policy forum is being streamed live with captioned on the fcc's website and will be posted for later viewing once complete. and with that, it is a great pleasure to introduce our first feel the tured speaker, fcc's chairman, mr. pie. mr. chairman. >> thanks so much, patrick. good morning and welcome to the fcc. thank you all for coming. i apologize at the outset, i'm in the midst of a cold so i've been alternating today between sounding like bah barry white and catherine hepburn but nonetheless i will pur cyst. special thanks to our co-host, the terrific team from the ftc and their fearless leader, my friend, acting chairwoman maureen who will be appearing by video who is not able to be here in person today. thank you as 2 my colleagues for take the time to be here and speak this morning. this cross agency event reflects

the importance of the issue of unwanted robocalls. for years this has generated the most consumer complaints here at the fcc and i know that our companions at the federal trade commission has gotten a lot of feedback about it as wlg. today's cooperation brings together not only the fcc and ftc but other leaders in government rrtd private sector and the nonprofit community. it's a group effort, one that is necessary and appropriate to tackle this challenging issue. it evokes in my mind ben franklin's famous quote upon signing the declaration of independence in 1776, we must indeed all hang together or most assurededly we shall all hang separately. to be sure there are is a lesser issue than the one he was facing, but robocalls requires un nighty. none of us will defeat this

alone. scammers, technical challenges, and the sheer volume of calls that are being unleashed on american consumers are daunting for any one entity to defeat. but working together i think we have a better chance. here at the fcc, combating unwanted robocalls is our top consumer protection priority and we've taken multiple steps over the past year to advance that priority. for instance, last november the fcc empowered phone dops block calls from spoofd phone numbers that do not or cannot actually originate calls. such as invalid or unassigned phone numbers. this is allowed phone companies to block calls before they get to consumers. we're seeking input on how to get caller i.d. information. this would give each phone number a verified digital fingerprint that would give every call recipient the confidence to answer knowing a legitimate caller was on the line. just yesterday fcc launched an

initiative to explore the creation of a database for reassigned phone numbers, ia measure that are would help reduce unwanted calls to consumers. now, the fcc's focus hasn't been limited to the rule making side of the ledger alone. aggressive enforcement also has been a key compon nechbt our strategy. we sent a very clear message that those who engage in illegal robocall schemes will pay a price, literally. in 2017, the fcc proposed over $200 million in fines against illegal robocallers, including the largest single fine ever proposed in the history of this agency. i've also personally raised this issue with some of my foreign counterparts 10 to able our governments to share information that's necessary to crack down on organized illegal robo calling operations. but we although that this isn't enough and that is why we've teamed up with the ftc with consumer advocates and with the private sector to constleen policy forum.

we're looking to you for guidance on the steps we've already taken and what steps we need to take in the future in order to protect consumers. i should note as well that this event will not be a one-hit wonder. on april 23rd the fcc and ftc will again be co-host angie vent, this time a technology expo that will feature technologies, devices, and applications that seek to minimize or eliminate the number of unwanted robocalls that consumers receive. it will be held at the petco ed son gallery rear in washington, d.c. we certainly hope that those of you here in the audience and those watching will be able to attend. thanks for joings today. looking at the talent in this room, many of whom i've had the chance to work with over the past couple of years on this issue, i know that this is going ton an engaging and productive day and at the end of it to borrow once again from franklin, i'm quite dhafd we will all hang together in this fight. so thank you for your attention and with that i will turn back to patrick to set upon our

schedule. thanks, patrick. >> thank you, mr. chairman. our next featured speaker is ftc acting chairman maureen elhow'sen. shell be delivering her remarks via prerecord video. >> thank you for come to today's robocall forum. while i can't there in person, i'm thrilled that the ftc and the fcc are co-hosting this event to explore the problem of illegal robocalls. and thank you to fcc chairman pi and to fcc and ftc staff who made this possible. like you are, i hate whenmy phone rings due to an illegal robocall. this problem isn't new but it does seem to come in waves. in the late 2000s we saw that robo calls were a growing problem and the ftc responded abi mending the tell marketing sales rule to prohibit the vast majority of robocalls or prerecorded sales calls. unfortunately, changes in

telephone technology, pry mayor lit growth of voice over internet protote colonel or voip and automated dialing software have made it much easier for telemarketers to make large volumes of robocalls, they spoof the ip often from foreign kwunts nothing more than a computer and internet connection. each of these developments has made it easier and more profitable for robocallers to violate the law and harder for law enforcement to stop them. and that means more calls and negative effects for consumers. the ftc uses every tool at our disposal to combat challenge of probe row calls, law enforcement law enforcement, nish toifs spur solutions, and robust and consumer outreach. let me touch on each. the ftc's robocall and do not call enforce plont gram has two prongs. our first program targets scams that use robocalls to commit

fraud. not other they annoying, they cause significant financial injury to many individuals. for example, in 2017 consumers reported losing $290 million from frauds perpetrated over the phone. second, our program against abusive tell marketing strategially targets the parties most responsible for robocalls. the kwps that sit at the top of a tell marketing networks ant robocall king pins who runt dial letters that blast out robe wro dau -- robocalls to a broad range of individuals. we have brought lawsuits to a lot of individuals alleged to be responsible for placing billions of unwanted tell marketing calls against consumers. we have $1.5 billion an cleblingted over $121 million from these violateters. during my ten your as acting

chairman, our enforcement stops two companies responsible for month that are 1 billion robocalls a year and in june, 2017, the doj on behalf of the ftc along with state coplaintiffs obtained the largest penalty ever nishd a did not call case. $280 million against dish network as well as strong injukttive relief. our enforcement efforts remain active and aggressive although there is always more to be done. now tourng industry outreach and technological solutions. the ftc has been especially creative and has had tremendous impact encouraging industry initiatives to tackle unlawful robocalls through our public challenges and more recently through our data initiatives. the ftc has led four public challenges, really innovation contests to spur the development of robocall blocking tools. two winners of the ftc challenges now offer leading

call-blocking apps. before the ftc's first challenge announced in 2012, there were very view blocking solutions available on the market. ed to there are many. particularly for wireless devices and cable or voip phones. as i mentioned, the ftc recently began a new initiative to help facilitate industry call-blocking solution business increasing the amount and frequency of consumer complaint date at that were made publicly available. when consumers report do not call or robocall violations to the agency, the phone numbers consumers report are now reached each business day to help telecommunications carrier and other carriers implement call blocking core fon assumers. the ftc now realize nor data about the call, including the date and time it was received, it's general subject matter and whether it was a robocall. several telecom carriers told us that sharing this data has

enhanced their ability to block fraudulent or illegal calls. final liver, because they atect so many people, it's important to get word out about what individuals can do. the ftc's education and outreach program reaches tens of millions of people a year through our website, the media and partner organizations that disseminate the ftc's consumer information. in the case of robocalls our spries is simple. if you answer a call and hear an unwant youed recorded sales message, just hang up and be aware that there are call blocking and labeling solutions that might reduce the number of unwanted calls you receive. indeed on april 23rd, the ftc and fcc are are hosteding a public event to showcase some of these new solutions. finally, the consumers want these abusive and often fraudulent calls to stop. the ftc's enforce mernt, innovation and education efforts are substantial and ongoing, with you we did do more. that's why together with the fcc

and other partners we're expanding the site to haung on the robocall scourge. today's forum is part of that fight but much more is to come. stay tuned and thank you. >> and thank you to the acting chairman. our next speaker is fcc commissioner clyburn. commissioner clyburn. >> further than i thought. good morning again, everyone. thank you for allowing me to take part in today's conversation on combating illegal robocalls. i'm pleased to see industry leaders an consume ig groups come together to discuss the regulatory hurdles posed by these illegal calls that have

annoyed countless consumers and scammed millions of americans. to put it bluntly, robocalls are out of control. and we have the consumer complaints to prove it. we each have had our encounters with robocalls, so i think it is fair to say this morning that we share the same feelings about them. the scenario is a common one, the phone rings, you pick it up, then you notice that distinct pause. you sigh because within seconds that recording offering you a free vacation to the caribbean comes across the phone. now, when experiencing a mid march blizzard in d.c. is more attractive than an offer to the caribbean, we all know we have a problem. increasingly, however, these

nuisance calls are coming from spoofed numbers from seemingly familiar numbers. advancements in technology have enabled robocalls at a scale we simply have not seen before. the techniques used by robocallers are becoming i creasingly sophisticated. they are even kperexperimentingh artificial intelligence that allows the robot to hold convincing conversations. according to the latest report from umail robocall indem, the chairman might have touched this, 2.7 billion of those calls were placed nationwide just last month. equally remark sbl that four phone numbers are responsible for over -- for more than 68 million of these calls. so given the severity and complexity of the unwanted robocall problem, the fcc and

ftc along with industry stakeholders and all of you, we're coming together to create clear ebb forcible rules and to encourage the creation of smart, private sector solutions. i agree fully with the conclusion of the robocall strike task force that robocalls are best addressed in a wholistic manner through deployment of a wide variety of tools by a broad range of stakeholders. this is why i'm particularly heartened to see a portion of today's events devoted to solutions and tools for consumers. while i believe the fcc can and must do more to abate this persistent knew assistance, there's also room for third parties and all steak holders to create resources to empower consumers. i admire industry efforts to develop caller i. i.d. authentication and the work of businesses providing blocking

services -- you know what i'm saying. mobile and i know i messed that up and umail. i'm sorry, i'm in another plain right now. the robocalls are driving me crazy. efforts such as these highlight that there is room and a need for new and innovative solutions. and i believe collaboration between the parties in this room will be key. so i look forward to hearing a report of a conversations taking place today and i stand ready, as always, to work with you in support of policies and initiatives that put consumers first. thank you again. >> thank you, commissioner clyburn. we're going to start with our first panel. that is going to be moderated by michael caldwell. she is a special counsel in my

office and the consumer government affairs bureau here at the fcc. and the panel is entitled challenges facing consumers and industry today. so i invite the panelists to come up. and micah. >> good morning, everyone. >> good morning. >> morning. >> pleased to be here, very pleased to welcome for our first panel michelle shift, he kevin roofy and bargeal low mu. i'll let them introduce them selves and then we'll get started. michelle. >> good morning, i'm michelle schuster i'm a former chief from the ohio attorney general's office. 11 years ago i started a law firm with three other consumer protective chiefs and a former ohio attorney general. and while i'm hear representing

the industry of at heart kroir consider myself a consumer advocate as well. i'm here in my capacity as general counsel for pace, the professional association for customer engagement. p.a.c.e. is the only industry nonprofit association that is dedicated solely to contact centers that place calls to consumers and businesses and use multiple channels for contacting consumers and business, including telephones, text message, social media, chats, and those types of avenues. i'm happy to be here today. >> good morning. my name is kevin rup partnership, i'm the vice president of policy for u.s. telecom, the broadband association. our member companies represent, you know, traditional wire line broadband companies from small, rural providers to, you know, some of the largest providers in the country.

robocalls has been a priority issue for our member companies, for our association over the last several years and i am thrilled to be here. i want to thank to thank chaird acting chairman for bringing this important forum together. and i do want to reiterate something that chairman pai said that i wholeheartedly agree with. this is a joint effort. so, this is something that industry, consumer groups, government, we all have to cooperate, work together on this issue, and i do feel, having worked on this issue over the last several years, i do feel like there's a tremendous amount of unity with all of those sectors moving in the same direction and in the right direction, and i'm looking forward to talk about everything that's been going on.

>> so i'm ed. i'll start by echoing the appreciation to fcc and leadership and staff for organizing today's event and look forward to participating. call for action is a national nonprofit network that partners with media outlets in cities throughout the country to set up volunteer staffed consumer help hotlines. and over the past couple years, it's been interesting in terms of robocalls because we can't do mediation but what we have seen is that our offices can track where the predictive dialers are calling. one day our colorado springs office might get a rash of irs-related scams and then nothing the next day and then it's off to atlanta or a different area of the country so it's been a unique situation in terms of the spike to traffic into our networks that robocalls produce but it's also been fascinating to sort of watch how some of this has evolved based on what we're hearing from consumers. another hat that i have the

great pleasure and opportunity to wear currently is that of chairing the fcc's consumer advisory committee. and kevin and i actually currently co-chair the robocall working group on that advisory committee and over the past year and month or so of our term, we've passed, i think, three recommendations. all of those recommendations had a number of different action items for the fcc to pursue and i'm very happy to say that the commission and commission staff have been working very closely with our membership to make a lot of those action items come into fruition and become a reality. so that's been exciting too. >> thank you for being here this morning again. so let's go ahead and get started with our panel. this first panel is about challenges facing consumers and industry today. the intent of the panel is to sort of set the foundation for the other two panels that come later this morning. that will get into some of the details about each of these areas. i think we want to sort of scratch the surface with this first panel and give an overview of the problem as we see it.

so, the first question that i have for you all, and i will direct it to both ed and kevin, i read an article in "the new york times" this morning that says that the robocalls problem is getting worse, so i'd like to get your perspectives on that. what is the extent of the illegal robocalls problem, and is it getting better or worse? >> sure. i think that the "new york times" is pretty spot on with the sense that it's getting worse, and i think the ftc numbers definitely bear that out. i think in 2017, they showed 4.5 million complaints. in 2016, 3.4 million. so it's -- the complaint numbers are rising by over 1 million complaints a year. and that bears out if you go back even further in those statistics. and that's despite the fact that there are so many tools and resources for consumers now on the market. i mean, at&t announced, i think, yesterday or recently that they've blocked 3.5 billion calls. i know that my cell phone provider, t-mobile, tells

me "scam likely" when my phone rings and i'm not going to answer that. so there are tools out there causing consumers to not have to deal with this, and yet complaints are still on the rise so i think the only conclusion we can reach is that numbers are going up and losses are going up. consumers union reports that this is a $9.5 billion cost to our economy in money lost through these scams and phone calls. >> kevin? >> yeah. so, i think i'd echo a lot of what ed says there. and a couple things. i mean, there's -- i don't think it's any surprise that robocalls are the number within consumer complaint at both the fk fcc and the ftc and we've heard a lot of numbers thrown out there, whether it's 2.5 billion last month or 2 at any ti.1 or 2.7. i don't know what the number is. i don't think anybody can say with certainty what the number is, but it's a lot of calls.

it's too many. and i think this has been an ongoing problem over the last several years. as i said, number one consumer complaint. but at the same time, i do think it's important that there -- to note that there has been a lot of good progress on this front for consumers. and there are a lot of good things that are happening out there, and you know, in the time i've been working on this issue, five or six years, one of the things that you're seeing that you'll hear a lot about today, there are more tools available to consumers today. there are an increasing number of tools that are available across multiple platforms, wireline, wireless, cable, voip, et cetera. that's a good thing.

there is more partnering taking place so you are seeing that the fcc passed the order last month that gives carriers the ability to block categories of calls. that's a good thing. you're hearing about at&t that's blocked 3.5 billion calls. those are 3.5 billion fewer calls that were able to connect with consumers and that's a good thing. there's progress being made on things like shaken and stir where you've seen the standards adopted. they were accelerated by six months because of the industry-led strike force. we're going through testing. that is not to say that everything's great. there is a lot of work that still needs to be done. this still is the number one consumer complaint. but i just think it's important that we not lose sight of a lot of the very good progress that's being made, and i think it's incumbent upon all of us to continue to move in that direction. >> if i could just add one thing

to that. so you overlay with the increase in consumer complaints about robocalls the comments that the fcc received from industry on this issue, what we're also experiencing recently is a significant rise and a -- in call completions not occurring, so industry has testified to -- or provided information to the fcc that says that we've seen a drop of about 20% to 30% from legitimate businesses in america as a result of the calling and labeling that's occurring. and so while industry wholeheartedly supports taking a strong stance against robocalls, which are to the detriment of legitimate businesses as well because it's deterring consumers and businesses alike from picking up calls -- picking up the phone for calls they desire and they want to receive, so i think we have to be mindful as we're proceeding forward in our zeal to eliminate robocalls that there are effects to legitimate

businesses that also have to be considered. >> thanks, michele. that's very true. we're all in agreement that it's an increasing problem and there are more tools available now than ever, but what's leading to an increase despite the fact that there have been these really positive developments? why are we seeing more and more robocalls? kevin and ed, could you speak to that as well. >> sure. so, i think the chairman hit the nail on the head when she talked about that. and she noted the two things. you have advances in technology. the way i look at it, you've had, as industry has transitioned to ip-enabled networks, you've had this, what i refer to as a merging of the internet with the pstn, the public switch telephone network and because of that, you've created kind of a vehicle whereby it's much easier to

inject those calls into the network. the second piece of that that i think is important to note is that as the chairman noted, it is extremely cheap to make phone calls. we're talking fractions of a penny. so that has created this environment where you can generate a tremendous amount of phone calls at minimal cost. so that's one of the key factors that's contributed to this. the other factor that's contributed to this is the fallibility of caller i.d. so, caller i.d. is very, very easy to spoof. and that's what the scammers are doing. they're able to spoof these numbers and create a false sense of trust amongst consumers that might compel them to pick up the phone or make them more inclined to pick up the phone.

now as i said before, the good news there is that industry has developed standards, they accelerated those standards by six months. they're going through testing. it's this whole shake and stir standards and best practices that you've heard about. and i think one of the important things -- there's a couple of important things to note about shake and stir. that will help to reintroduce trust into the caller i.d. system so that when that number says, here's who's calling, that's who's calling. and i think an important thing to note, and michele hit on this. we talk about robocalls but i really like to focus on illegal robocalls, because michele is right. there is a lot of legitimate traffic that gets thrown under this robocall umbrella, things like school closings, doctor

remind reminders, calls from companies that you have relationships with. we want to basically separate those two, get rid of the illegal robocalls and help these valid, legitimate robocalls or calls to get through, and caller i.d. can do that, authenticated caller i.d. can help to do that. >> sure. >> i would add, too, i think another thing that's driving this is the success rate. the fraudsters are getting a monetary payout so it is worth their while to keep this going. kevin pointed out that it costs less than a penny to place these calls. when you calculate some of the fines that have been issued and divide it by the number of calls that were placed, the fines are less than a penny per call. so you're looking at a scenario where between the cost of making the call and the potential fine, you're still spending less than a penny per call to perpetrate these scams on consumers and to

swindle them out of money. so i think that that's a huge driving factor in why this continues, and one of the reasons why we started to talk recently about maybe there should be a criminal element here where people spend some time in prison as a consequence for the scam calls that they're making. >> and ed literally took the words out of my mouth. i couldn't agree with that more. and you know, a couple of other things. like, collectively, industry, whether it's voice providers or all the different companies out there like first orion, umail, we want to, and i think we are making it more expensive and more challenging for these illegal actors to make calls. and in other words, the more costly you make it for them to try to carry these things out, that makes it less profitable and at the end of the day we want to remove that component. but i do have to echo what ed

said. i would strongly support and industry would be ready to partner with our partners in the federal government on helping to identify these bad actors and bringing criminal enforcement. >> i think we probably do have criminal penalties already if people are perpetrating frauds. there would be crimes that apply to that so i think there's already the tools there for those types of telephone calls. as we're looking at eliminating the robocalls and, again, something that we all support and all are aligned with, and as we are looking at the members of the industry that are being affected by the calling and labeling, i think it's really important that two things happen in this echo system that now exists with blocking and labeling in it. it's very important that legitimate businesses know if their phone numbers are being called or labeled. currently, there doesn't exist an easy mechanism for legitimate

callers to identify that that is happening. there is currently technology in place that would provide an intercept code for businesses to receive notice that their calls are being blocked. it's been around since the 1950s. i think it's a workable solution for notifying businesses. also, for companies that are notified that their calls are being labeled or blocked, they need an easy remediation route so that they can contact somebody, and you need to understand that if a company's numbers are being blocked, a legitimate company that is invested significantly in complying with the tcpa or the tsr, right now, they could have a number of different parties that they would have to contact, one of many telecom carriers that are out there. it could be one of many analytics companies that are working with them, other service providers and there is no easy mechanism for a legitimate

business to contact somebody and rectify a situation where calls are being wrongfully blocked, legitimate calls are being wrongfully blocked or labeled. so we really encourage that as the fcc and the ftc are moving forward, looking for solutions. >> and just to put a finishing point on that, you know, i do think it's important to note and pace and u.s. telecom have both conducted industry collaborative workshops to address that issue because that's an important issue and making sure that these legitimate call originators can get problems fixed. where those false positives arise. but that's something -- my sense is that that is something that all sectors of the industry are invested in and committed to. >> thanks for that. did you have something else? >> i would just ask as we're

moving forward that that would be an important consideration quickly. we have been meeting with industry groups and consumer advocates and with telecom carriers and service providers for probably about a year now without a solution, and i just really want to put an emphasis on the fact that the need for this to happen quickly is of paramount importance. >> so, michele, could you tell us a little bit more, we've been focusing on the illegal robocalls problem, but you speak from the perspective of somebody who represents the industry that's trying to reach consumers with legitimate robocalls and so i'd like to sort of talk about some of the benefits that consumers get from calls from your organizations that you represent. >> sure. so, for the legitimate businesses and the good actors out there, the technology that we have available to reach a number of people in a short period of time is a very good thing. there are a lot of types of calls that consumers and

businesses want to receive using this technology. things like appointment reminders, service delivery reminders, pharmacy refill reminders, there's school closings. there's a number of different good reasons and good uses for this type of technology. and the marketing world, if you can call more efficiently, people that have requested and given their consent to be called, that's a more efficient process for a business and consumers as well. so there are a lot of really great applications for the technology. the unfortunate reality is this same good technology for legitimate industry has become really a weapon that is being used to really be a scourge for american citizens for these illegal calls that are happening, and those types of calls really need to be distinguished from legitimate calls that businesses are making to consumers who oftentimes want to receive those calls. >> so from the industry's perspective, kevin, what are some of the challenges that the providers run into when it comes

to trying to decipher between legitimate calls and illegal robocalls? >> well, so, on that point, i think there's a couple of important things to note. i always break down, when you're looking at industry sectors that are operating in this space, you have the fcc's order that authorized voice providers to conduct blocking basically at the network level on four categories of calls and those are discreet narrowly defined categories. it's, do not originate, it's invalid numbers, unassigned or unallocated numbers. so in that category, what are basically identifiable numbers that can be blocked. when you start looking at the other industry sectors like first orion, like nomorobo,

there is broader latitude for the categories of calls that they can block. and i know having participated in a lot of these industry forums, they put tremendous effort into looking at multiple characteristics to make sure that when they do decide to flag that call or score that call, that they get it right. but i do think michele is right that even in that instance, we do want to make sure that there is a mechanism whereby when an instance of a false positive arises, that can be addressed, that it can be resolved quickly and efficiently. and there's a lot of different ways that you can go with that, and that is a lot of the discussion that's happening and i know ustelecom, we've had one initial workshop in october this year to discuss this exact

issue. we've scheduled a second for may 4th here in washington, d.c. i know pace has similar efforts going on, but i think there is definitely a commitment to move in that direction to develop industry solutions to make sure we get it right. >> and i would say i think too, we're obviously all in agreement that illegal robocalls need to be stopped and that that's a problem, but i think the prevalence of and the volume of the illegal calls has put consumers in this position of frustration. it's put consumer advocates, it's put fcc chair and ftc chair people in the position of saying just hang up the phone. or don't answer the call if you don't recognize the number. so that does create a scenario where it's difficult for calls that have valuable information like a potential school closing to breakthrough. having said that, i do think that when a consumer makes a conscious choice to sign up for

a product or service offering like nomorobo, that's an exercise of choice on their part and they're saying, i'm entrusting this other group to make certain screening decisions for me. now i do think it's very important for groups that are engaging in that sort of offering to be very clear and transparent about what they're offering and what could potentially be caught in the net. so that consumers are making an informed consent choice when they decide to enroll for something like that. but i do think we can't sort of overlook that this is one way that consumers are exercising some choice about the types of interactions they want to receive. >> thank you, ed. so i'd like to talk a little bit about the solutions some more and i think one of the things that factors into this is information sharing. one of the things that acting chairman mentioned was that complaint data and putting the complaint data out there so that third party applications can use

it for their call blocking and filtering solutions, but is there other types of information sharing that could be going on in the private sector, among industry and providers to help develop some of these products and more solutions for consumers. >> so, on the information sharing, i think i applaud what both the fcc and ftc have done in terms of sharing that information. i think previously, that information was being released on like a monthly basis and it's now on a daily basis and look, at the end of the day, timeliness on this information is key, especially for the analytics developers who are scoring these algorithms. that's a critical component when you consider that these illegal robo callers are oftentimes changing the numbers that they're spoofing every ten

minutes, every hour. so that information sharing is good. and we fully support that type of information sharing. another area that i would point out that's important information sharing is ustelecom heads what's called the industry traceback group which is 23 voice providers, cable, wireless, wire line, wholesale providers, and we act in a cooperative manner to basically share call information in order to trace back illegal robocalls. because i do think that type of sharing, that's a form of information sharing, that's crucial, because i'm certainly a big believer that when you can trace those calls back to their source and identify who is originating those calls, you are taking those calls out at the

root. you're not trying to swat flies at the consumer end by labeling or blocking an individual call. you're pulling it out at the source. and that type of information sharing is something that i think within industry should be encouraged, that should be supported, and we certainly support broad participation in this type of sharing, so that we can more easily identify where these calls are coming from. >> that was one call not blocked. >> exactly. get on that. >> michele, did you have something to add? >> so, we support the information sharing, obviously, also, from the fcc and the ftc. i think that that's valuable informs, and companies have access to that information, so they actually have the ability to look up their phone numbers to see if they're showing up on

that database as a phone number that's using -- that is receiving a complaint. so i think there's huge value in those types of lists and i again just reiterate the importance of if companies' telephone numbers are being blocked, we just really need a way of knowing that. we need a way of being able to rectify a system where blocking or labeling is happening in a way that isn't appropriate. >> can i just add one more thing? you know, one other factor that i point out that's important, especially how we teed up this conversation about the number of complaints being received by the fcc and ftc, that information sharing also goes from some of these deployed scoring and labeling services to the ftc's and fcc's complaint mechanism. so in other words, that may be a source of some of the increase

in consumer complaints is that you have consumers who are now empowered with consumer tools, and those tools are reporting to the ftc and providing what i think is real, timely, accurate information so that it benefits the broader good, both in terms of enforcement and making existing tools that much more accurate. >> and i think -- >> i'm sorry, go ahead. >> i think consumers are eager to airport -- participate in data sharing as well. if you google a number that shows up on your phone, you can hit ten different results that tell you what that call was likely to have been. when consumers call our hotlines to report they've gotten these calls, the constant reprieve is, i want to get this number shut down so that this person doesn't harm or scam someone else. so i think there's an eagerness by consumers to participate where it's appropriate and when they can as well. >> i guess the only thing that i would say and even just from the former regulator standpoint,

when we received complaints, and especially in today's environment where we're hitting an app to send a complaint directly to a regulatory agency, oftentimes the consumer is not aware of who's calling them. they don't know what the content of the call is so i think that there's a likelihood of many false positives that are happening throughout that complaint process. having said that, i still think it's valuable information for the companies if their phone numbers are being reported, they have the ability to look up those numbers and they know they are doing something that is not effecting what they want, which is to have a positive consumer or business interaction so those types of databases are helpful for that. >> well, the clock says we have a minute left but i see that our next speaker is already here so in an effort to keep us on time, i think we should probably wrap up there rather than asking another question so i want to thank you all again for being here today and for offering your pefrp pefr perspectives on this issue. i appreciate your time. >> great. >> thank you.

>> thank you to micah and our panel one panelists. our next featured speaker is fcc commissioner brendan carr. >> thanks for taking the time to be here and thank you for the chance to say a few words. as a consumer, i certainly appreciate all the work that industry, consumer groups, federal government, state government is putting into this. my very first meeting as an fcc commissioner was in september of last year, sat right over here, and during the meeting, my phone went off and rang. i forgot to put it on silent. it was, of course, a robocall. my colleagues called me out for

it. so i got off to the wrong foot in this new job. but hopefully that won't happen again and we're taking action to address that stuff. but trying to address this issue of robocalls is a complicated task, technically, under the law, so that's why it's so great that we're seeing the partnerships today from the ftc, fcc, from industry, consumer groups. it is going to take continued, sustained effort along all these fronts to continue to make progress on these issues. over the past year, the fcc, for instance, we have finally elevated robocalls to our top enforcement priority. that's a good thing. right now, consumers receive perhaps 98 million robocalls per day or roughly 1,000 robocalls per second. at the fcc, we get about 200,000

complaints about robocalls a year, and obviously not every robocall you get, not every person that gets multiple ones is going to file a complaint at the fcc, so you can extrapolate significantly upwards from that, get a sense of the scope of this problem. so we need to continue to work with all stakeholders to be creative about identifying and implementing solutions and taking aggressive enforcement action. at the fcc, we're already working on a number of fronts, reassigned numbers is one of them. as you may have discussed already today, i think the estimates are somewhere around 38 million numbers are reassigned a year so you can give someone permission to call you. that number is subsequently reassigned to another person, then they end up getting spammed from callers even though they didn't give their permission to receive it. we took a vote yesterday to try to move down the path of a reassigned numbers database and explore other ways to solving this one piece of the problem.

spoofing is another issue that i'm sure a lot of you are running into. i get it a lot. you see a phone number, it may reflect the same exchange as your cell phone number, it rings a bell that maybe this is someone you know. you pick it up. that's another issue we've been taking action on at the fcc. in november of last year, we adopted rules that will give phone companies greater flexibility to block calls that are likely fraudulent due to their originating number. call authentication is another area that we're working on at the commission. in july of last year, we launched a proceeding to facilitate methods of authenticating the true source of a phone call. we heard a little bit about that at the last panel, that ultimately that's one great way to get at the root of this problem. you know, right now, with ip networks, with phone calls coming in, it can be difficult to fully trace back where the actual call originated from, and that's been stopping some of our

enforcement actions, so with industry's efforts, with technological progress, we're continuing to work on that effort as well. finally, obviously, is the enforcement side. and at the fcc, the last couple months, we've been issuing some of the largest fines in fcc history against illegal robocalls, which will hopefully stop some of the most abusive practices we're seeing, and send the right signal to the community that the fcc is very serious. the ftc is serious. state actors are serious about taking aggressive action against those people that are initiating these unwanted robocalls. so, there's more work to do, but the fcc, ftc, state and industry partners, we are all committed to taking action. we hear from consumers what a problem this is. we also understand the scope and nature in terms of how difficult it is for us to solve it but we're committed to moving forward. so i welcome today's event and

the additional ideas and areas for action that it's identifying. and with that, i will move off the stage and let the true experts on this continue the really productive discussion. i do look forward to seeing the continued efforts of these types of groups in seeing where at the fcc we can continue to take action to protect consumers. so, thank you. >> thank you, commissioner carr. our second panel is entitled recent regulatory and enforcement efforts. it is moderated by tom paul, acting director of the ftc's bureau of consumer protection. i invite tom and the panelists to please come up. and i will turn it over to tom. thank you.

>> all right. well, good morning, everyone. i'm tom paul, i'm the acting director of the ftc's bureau of consumer protection. i'm thrilled to be here today to talk about what we can do to combat unwanted and unlawful robocalls. our first panel, we heard a lot about the prevalent extent nature of the unwanted robocalling problem that we have in the united states. i think that was very appropriate, very great way for us to get started in looking at this issue. and fortunately, our next panel here is going to talk about what state and federal government

officials have been doing, what they can do, what they'd like to do to deal with robocall problems and fortunately we have a very experienced and esteemed group of panelists today to help walk us through what the government is doing, what challenges the government faces, and what their plans are for the future to try to deal with illegal robocalls. and so maybe i can just go through and have each of our panelists briefly say who they are and where they're from and what organization they represent and we can start with christy thompson. >> hi, good morning, everybody. i'm christy cothompson. i like to think of myself as the fcc's robocall enforcer. that is the subject nearest and dearest to my heart. so i lead a team of about 40 an lis and attorneys. our number one focus is on consumer protection and of consumer protection, right now, the biggest issue is, of course,

stopping illegal robocalls. >> thank you. >> good morning. i'm mark stone. i'm deputy chief in the fcc's consumer bureau, and i work on robocalls from a policy and rule making perspective and absolutely robocalls, illegal robocalls are the fcc's top consumer protection priority so we're busy. >> i'm special counsel, and one of the issues that we're working on is call authentication and trust anchor, the shake and stir standards that you've been hearing about. >> good morning, everybody. i'm lois with the federal trade commission. i head what's called the division of marketing practices, which has primary responsibility for enforcement of the telemarketing roles, both where there's fraudulent conduct and abuse of conduct and it's nice to see so many familiar faces, most of whom i think are frequently. friendly. >> good morning. my name is denise. i'm the senior assistant attorney general from the great state of florida with the

florida attorney generals office. within that office, in the consumer protection division, we are charged with the civil enforcement of the unfair and deceptive trade practices act along with other state the federal consumer related act. the attorney general is deeply committed to fighting illegal robocalls and there is enough work for our attorneys and our staff and our investigators to keep us busy. >> thank you very much to all of our panelists for being here today and sharing their expertise with us. i think some of the folks have already started doing this but i would like to have each of our panelists talk about what statute or regulations their organizations enforce or implement, because one of the things i think is very valuable for people to understand is that there are a number of legal restrictions in place and try to get a sense of how those various legal regimes interact with one another. so, perhaps we could go through each of the panelists again and

talk about what their organization enforces or implements in terms of statutes and regulations to get a bit of flavor for what the overall federal and state enforcement and regulatory scheme looks like. and again we start with christy. >> the hazard of being on the end here. so the fcc has two main provisions of the communication act that are relevant for robocalls. and the first one is, of course, the telephone consumer protection act, the tcpa, which governs prerecorded and auto dialed calls and has been the subject of quite a bit of litigation since it was adopted by congress in 1991. the second very important provision that we enforce is the truth in caller i.d. act of 2009, and that is the act that says it's unlawful to spoof, falsify the caller i.d.

information if the purpose of doing is to defraud, cause harm, or wrongfully obtain something of value. so, those two things dove tail with each other nicely because we see problems with both of those things. there's a huge number of illegal robocalls, of course, and that triggers the tcpa. and the illegal robocallers, the worst of the worse, the ones who are out there trying to defraud consumers, use spoofing as a way to hide from law enforcement, to hide from consumers finding out who they are and exercising their right to pursue legal remedies in court on the consumer level. and hide from our carriers, our carrier allies that are trying to locate these guys and block them. so, it's very -- so the fcc, it's very important for us that we exercise both of those laws to the fullest extent. those are the tools that we have to take down illegal robocalls and that's pretty much what i do

24/7 when we're looking at cases that we take. that's our -- that's our toolbox. >> thank you. >> so i also work a lot on the telephone consumer protection act, more from a rule making or policy implementation perspective. and what folks may not know is actually robocall is a term of art under the tcpa and just to say at the beginning, not all robocalls are bad. i think we heard there are lot of robocalls that consumers want to get, expressed their consent to get. nevertheless, the tcpa and the commission define the rules broadly for landline phones, they leave prerecorded and automated voice messages and also telemarketing. for wireless, it's calls that leave auto dialed or prerecorded voice messaged or are made with an auto dialer and it doesn't matter if those calls are telemarketing or not so there's

a little bit of distinction between whether the car is to a landline or wireless phone and it's something that we think a lot about around here. and as kristi mentioned, we work on the truth in caller i.d. act s which is a little more sherwin's bailey wick. >> i don't think there's any additional statutes i have to add for the fcc to cover. we can talk about the standards a lbit later. >> sure. >> from the federal trade commission, we can reach illegal calls under our main act, but the really discrete set of rules that govern telemarketing are part of the telemarketing sales rule which was amended effective 2009 to prohibit virtually all robocalls unless the consumer has given express written permission to that seller to receive a robocall. now -- and this is a tighter regulatory scheme than the do not call scheme because the consumer doesn't have to be on the national do not call

registry for that robocall to be illegal. but i think a real difference between the fcc's regulatory scheme and the ftc's is really the definition of what is telemarketing. for us, for the federal trade commission, it has to be the sale of a good or product or the solicitation of a donation. informational calls are not covered, so when michele and kevin gave the example of the school call, the appointment reschedule call, the doctor's office call, those are not telemarketing under the federal trade commission's rules and i want to make one additional point on scope of coverage. calls that use sound board technology or avatar technology, which we often see used by for profit telefunders, those soliciting charitable donations on behalf of others, the ftc considers those robocalls and they are not permitted. thank you. >> so our primary authority comes from the florida unfair and deceptive trade practices

act. we also have other florida state law like the florida telemarketing act that we can enforce in court. we also have the ability to enter into federal court and enforce provisions of the tcpa and the tsr and we have partnered with the federal trade commission to bring actions in federal court and have obtained very successful results. >> great. thank you. well, clearly from what we heard this morning from chairman pai, acting chairman ohlhausen and what we've heard about attorney general bondy's priorities, certainly dealing with robocalls is at the top of the agenda of many federal and state officials. i'd like to hear from the panelists as to are there any new actions or initiatives your organizations have commenced to deal with unlawful robocalls, including partnerships with each other or partnerships with industry, working with consumer advocates, are there new -- just generally, are there new actions

or initiatives that your organizations have understood taken that you'd like to highlight for the foeklks in attendance. >> we've heard a little bit of talk earlier today about a commission decision back last november, and that was one of the first times the commission has really said the voice service providers are our partners in blocking illegal robocalls. if we can stop the worst robocalls before they ever reach consumers, that's a win. so in november of last year, the commission for the first time said that voice providers can block calls that are highly likely to be illegal. how do we know they're highly likely to be illegal? because of the spoofing element that we touched on earlier. so the commission specified two categories of spoofed calls where it found no legitimate robocall would be spoofing these numbers. so we've heard a little bit about this already but it's a do not originate type of number, think about the irs scam where the irs says we do not make calls from this number. any call approximapurporting to this number ain't us so please

block those sorts of calls. the second category are calls of caller i.d. invalid phone numbers, 000 area code, no legitimate caller would want to call from this number. and then finally there are numbers that haven't been allocated or assigned to anyone yet. again, no reason that a legitimate robocall would want to make these calls. so again, the commission in november said that voice providers may, although they don't have to block these types of calls before they ever reach consumers. statement, the commission is looking at other objective bases that might be able to indicate that a call is illegal. these are data analytics type things where, for example, someone spoofs my phone number and all of a sudden a voice provider sees that my number is making a million robocalls in the course of a couple seconds. that's probably not me. so the commission is developing a record around that. of course one of the issues there is we want to make sure that i can't -- my ability to make calls, the legitimate

subscriber's ability to make calls is not compromised so that's a big part of what we're looking at. >> so, i'm glad you asked that question. just this morning, we filed a case against a massive robocaller, ftc against alliance security, making millions of robocalls, including calls to consumers whose number is on the do not call registry and using deceptive tactics to sell home security alarms. i suspect there's not a single person in this room who hasn't received that type of phone call. i'll give a quick shoutout to ian, who's one of our lead counsels in it. so this is another case tackling what we really strategically identify as kingpins in the robocalling industry, whether they're the dialers or voice blasters that are hosting these calls and pushing them out or the main sellers at the top of these affiliate telemarketing networks. we've brought a series of these

cases. i could name the names but hopefully no one in this room is really familiar with them, but they're well known in industry and our job has been to strategically target them, identify them and impose as strong civil injunctive relief as we can. we've successfully achieved bans. in fact, part of this case, some of the defendants settled and they are banned from selling home security alarm systems. and in other instances, trying to achieve a strong penalty. speaking of partnerships, state of florida has been a tremendous partner in really the fraudulent telemarketing case which cause enormous economic injury. and we've forged not just state/federal partnerships but also partnerships with our international colleagues who

suffer the same impact of these awful telemarketing calls and with a particular focus on illegal telemarketing out of india. >> so, one of the things that we are interested in helping along is the industry effort to implement shaken and stir. so call authentication. you've heard about this but essentially the idea is that a carrier, a phone company, can sign the phone calls as they're being made. it's a way for the company that initiates the phone call to vouch for it, that this number, this call is actually coming from the number it says it is coming from. so they're able to include that signature on it when it's received, whoever's receiving that, actually the phone company that's going to terminate that call or even the handset manufacturer or even the consumer themselves can make that decision, can determine what to do with this call, knowing that either they know it is from the number it says it's

from or it can't be vouched for. so, that leaves any person along to chain the ability to make those decisions. so, the phone companies can block it. a third party anti-spoofing organization can block that or the consumer could receiving this information say, there's no sort of vouching for this. i'm not going to accept this call. it also, in the case where calls are verified and they turn out to be fraudulent, it would allow law enforcement to trace back and find those people more easily than the current process allows. so what the fcc is interested in doing is making sure that these standards have been developed, they're being tested right now, and we want to make sure that this process continues to move forward, that it can be deployed broadly and quickly -- as quickly as possible to help people combat spoofing and illegal spoofing. so, that's -- we have a record

that's open on this. the north american numbering council is currently consulting on ways to make sure that we can set up the structures necessary for industry to coordinate and collaborate on this. and to move this forward as quickly as we can. >> so, the florida attorney general's office has a special investigations unit where if we get a consumer complaint about a particular phone call, we'll reach out to the carrier, communicate what the consumer has told us via the complaint and try and have that phone number stopped. however, time is of the essence in these cases. these robo callers haare very sophisticated. we've had some success. we work with other state agencies and we're constantly in communications about new scams because they're constantly changing, especially those that target veterans, those that target senior citizens, within the state and outside, and also

other groups that are sensitive and vulnerable to these types of scams. >> great. well, thank you, everyone. one question that had come up on the last panel or one point that had come up was a difference between unlawful robocalls and lawful robocalls. just curious as to what your organizations do to try to treat these calls differently and in your work. perhaps start with denise. >> i think it's easy to differentiate between the fraudulent telemarketing calls and those that are legitimate. the fraudulent telemarketing calls have those consistent red flags. high pressure sales tactic, you have to pay me now, the offer is going to end soon, and then later i couldn't cancel or get a refund and then i cannot get in contact with whatever good or o service was provided over the phone so it's very easy for our investigators and our staff to differentiate and sort out those that are really the fraudulent

robocalls versus those from legitimate businesses. >> and i'd say on our side, i mentioned earlier us empowering voice providers to block illegal robocalls. at the same time, call completion of legitimate calls, all legitimate calls, including robocalls, is also important to the fcc. so, what we've done is encourage voice providers, you heard a little bit about this earlier, to have a mechanism in place to identify quickly false positives and rectify that situation. because no one wants your kid's school robocalling to get blocked in the net. similarly you heard mentioned earlier today the reassigned numbers database. that's an effort by the fcc to make sure that robocalls made by legitimate callers that are desired by consumers are still made and still received. so, the mere fact that i give up my phone number to someone else should not mean that i stop getting the robocalls that i consented to earlier and it shouldn't mean that the new person that has the phone number gets unwanted robocalls so that's a big part of our initiative to make sure the good robocalls get to the right people, even as we move forward

to block the worst robocalls. >> and -- sorry. i just want to underscore from the federal trade commission. the definition of telemarketing is different so that the school calls, the doctor calls, are not telemarketing -- are not robocalls. they're not illegal for purposes of the federal trade commission act and i think that really is an important distinction. that's not where we're doing any law enforcement and nor would we and the ftc also doesn't distinguish between a call to a wire line or a wireless one. those are just not relevant distinctions. i think the world of industry robocalls that are legitimate, really, is a fairly narrow slice and this is something i've talked to pace about. and the ftc has no interest whatsoever in chilling that world. but i do think it is a relatively narrow set of the unwanted and illegal robocalls that are being placed. >> i think that's right.

and that's certainly what we -- that tracks with what we see on -- from the fcc's side as well. to add to this, to the extent that the fcc -- the tcpa could potentially draw in more than, say, the most abusive types of robocalls, we have the prosecutorial discretion, if you will, to decide what kind of cases to take, and me and my enforcement attorneys are not interested in taking cases against school districts that are -- that may be calling a little more than they should. we don't have the time or resources to police nonproblematic robocalls. so we really look at what are the surconsumers telling us and that's where we're going to focus our efforts. that's the irs scams, the microsoft scams, the other -- my

favorite are the skarcarpet cleanings and the roofing scams that show up quite frequently. we're going after the worst of the worst because they're the ones that need the most attention immediately. >> great. well, thank you, everyone. what would you say is the most important and most significant challenge your organization faces in dealing with illegal robocalls? >> i'll start with this. spoofing is the gasoline on the robocalling fire. it allows robocalls, illegal robocalls to thrive, to spread, and it makes it very, very difficult for me to find the bad guys and take action against them. that is the most significant challenge for us is going through the process of identifying where those illegal robocalls come from. it's a laborious enforcement process. we have to send a daisy chain of subpoenas from the end

recipient's carrier all the way to the originating carrier because there is no identifier that we can trust in the call stream information. that's changing, which i'm very glad is happening with the shaken and stir standards that are being rolled out. and another significant change that has happened just in the last five years has been folks like the u.s. telecom that have gotten together and are now working together cooperatively to save me, for example, five or six steps in the subpoena process. that group of carriers getting together, sharing information and tracing back the call as far as they can before letting us know and referring it to us means that that's numerous carriers in the chain that i don't have to contact or subpoena or try to get information from because they've already done that work for me

the. that has been tremendously helpful and i couldn't be happier at our continued partnership on that front. >> i totally agree. what industry has done on traceback has been enormously helpful, and we encounter the exact same challenges fcc does and i'm sure the states do. we've got a spoofed number, what do you do, how do you work with that. i mean i think you talk about challenge, so every month we have upwards of 400,000 reports about unwanted calls. not saying every one of those is an illegal call but one can probably presume that the vast majority are and that those are the tip of the iceberg of unwanted the illegal calls received each month. every business day, we're putting on the public record the consumer reports of some 18,000 phone numbers. so that is a lot of information out there that's a lot of potential targets to work with. so, the challenge in law

enforcement in this area, like in so many areas, we all have limited resources. how do you strategically target so that you're getting the biggest bang for the buck? one of the enormous challenges has been telemarketing from abroad and we see this in the irs scams and what we call the technical support scams. i am from microsoft, i'm from dell, your computer's infected. we've met several times in india with indian authorities, with stakeholders, with industry members as well as had a series of meetings here and we've actually been successful in shutting down some of those operations with the indian authorities and particularly the department of justice here. there was a major crackdown, i think, back in the fall of 2016. so there are ways to try to combat the illegal telemarketing that's coming from abroad, but i think that will continue to pose a real challenge. >> so i think the challenge for us is when we turn our policy lens to one particular type of robocalling or spoofing and try

to get a beat on that, often the spoofers and robocallers move to other areas. we hear about neighbor spoofing all the time. that's a big challenge to us but it's very gratifying to see so many folks in the space kind of come together. i think we've never worked better with industry on trying to solve a problem. there's also a challenge, a big part of what my bureau does is consumer outreach. it's a challenge to talk to consumers and say, we're trying to help. we're trying to prevent illegal robocalls, trying to make sure that you can trust, eventually, when a phone number pops up on your phone that you know exactly who that is and it's okay to pick that up or also educate them if they're unsure about the caller to hang up and then google the phone number that came in to you to see if it's legitimate or not. so that's a big part of this, talking to consumers and letting them know what their best method is to protect themselves even as we're trying to work at a higher level to make things better in the future. >> i would echo everything that the panel has already mentioned

about spoofing. the international presence. and the outreach component. there's also the component of locating the actual rooms where the telemarketing calls are coming from. in central rooms. in central florida, i'm in sunny orlando, but in central florida we have conducted immediate access cases where we enter the telemarketing room once we have a federal court order and we actually see the telemarketers set up in the room, we see the network systems that have been built in, but finding those actual rooms become a challenge. they create this web and maze of shell companies. from an enforcement point of view, that can be a significant challenge as well. >> thank you. the d.c. circuit issued a decision ruling on a number of objections to a 2015 fcc order clarifying aspects of tcpa's bar

against automatic dialling devices to make automatic calls. i was wondering if colleagues in the fcc can describe what was held and if the panelists can speak to whether that decision is likely to have an impact on the government's ability to deal with with unwanted robo calls or not? >> sure, we are still digesting it. in a high level, the court rules on a couple things. the fcc's interpretation of the autodial which is robo calls made to wireless calls. the past interpretation of reassigned numbers issue and finally, replication of consent. there was one other issue as well. the d.c. circuit said past fccs decision or interpretation of autodial up was flawed. that was the big headline from the decision. secondly, the d.c. circuit

reversed the decision on reassigned numbers including a one call safe harbor where a caller said the caller had one call to find out they are reassigned and after that, they are on the hook for liability. i upheld the past decision finding consumers have a right. so, again, we are digesting that decision, it's somewhat complex. a lot of initiatives we have taken at the fcc respect dependent on decisions or interpretations. for example, the court noted favorably the reassigned numbers, likewise, caller id authentication and call blocking don't depend on specific interpretation. i would expect as they are thinking of next steps, those other efforts will proceed. >> on the enforcement side, if

largest couple cases we have released in the past year have been at least the notice apparent liability of proposed fines. we are based on the caller id act, not the tcpa, the focus of the court's action in the most recent decision. so, in terms of putting folks like adrian out of business, the court's decision doesn't really affect our work to enforce the spoofing laws. even the decision on, when we assigned for violating the tcpa for the illegal robo calls. they were a prerecorded voice message. under the tcpa, the autodialer issue, the key focus of the decision doesn't enter into that. so, we feel confident that we will continue to bring cases

against the adrian's of the world, especially when those mass spoofers or sorry, the mass robo callers are engaging in spoofing, which violates a separate statute. you will see more from us, even after this aca decision. >> great. thank you. turning to possible solutions to overcoming challenges the folks on the panel mentioned. with changes on the law would that be helpful to you to try to deal with unlawful robo calls? any of the panelists if they think there are changes in statute or regulation that could be helpful and if so, how could they be helpful? >> the ftc has been on record now for more than a decade for repeal of the common carrier exemption. it hasn't made sense for the

last decade or more. it does impede or at least hinder our ability to go after some bad actors out there, particularly in the reselling market where we do see specific carriers that, in effect are hosting robo callers that are placing illegal calls. we encounter instances in law enforcement where we see entities that are, if they are not carriers report to be carriers. it raises the enforcement cost going after them. that's the big one from us. >> fcc has also been on record for a couple improvements that help in terms of enforcement. one is extending. we have a one year statute of limitations so extending that to two years instead of one would be enormously helpful. previously, we talked about the

difficulty finding bad guys when they use spoof numbers. pretty much all of the bad guys use spoofed numbers. that just slows down our ability to find them, which means, from practical perspective, several months may go by, even if we are notified the day after it happens, it will take us some amount of time to figure out where that came from and identify and untangle the nest of shell companies like lois mentioned and that eats into that one year statute of limitations. it seems like a long time, but from an enforcement perspective, it isn't. the other change we talked about publicly is under the tcpa and under the communications act, when we find a robo caller, this is just for the robo call violations for tcpa. if that violator is not an

authorization holder, permit or license holder of the fcc, the maximum enforcement action we can take against that robo caller is send them a citation, which is effectively a legal warning letter, don't do this in the future or you'll get in trouble. the purpose for that, you know, as enacted by congress was to make sure folks who aren't necessarily well versed in fcc law don't get swept into the more nuanced communications act, which manges sense. at this point, it's well known robo calls are a problem. the targets we are going after are so clearly and obviously intentionally violating the law that having a warning letter at the outset is really frustrating and would be helpful to exempt, as congress did in the spoofing

context, to exempt that part of the communications act from the citation requirement. >> thank you. one thing that folks have noted is many of the bad actors and their assets are located abroad. what are the sort of things that are impediments to proceeding against foreign based actors and are there things that can be done to overcome those obstacles? ask lois to respond to that, first. >> the ftc does have lots of tools they can use to seek to obtain information on entities located offshore. so, we can issue process and do parts of an investigation. obviously, where there are assets offshore, that's complicated. we see even the indian

operations targeting u.s. citizens and canadians and others, we often see something in the u.s., something we can freeze as part of a federal district court proceeding and, in some instances, we have defendants who, for a variety of reasons are willing to repetriuate assets offshore. we have had a fair amount of success but there's no question, this is a challenging area. >> in terms of -- it should be possible if two countries have these systems in place and they can coordinate their systems appropriately, these systems should be able to work across borders, so it would be poszsibe to have international calls as well. it does require more coordination and hope to see in the future. >> it has been very challenging when you identify a bad guy robo

caller and determine that they are operating overseas. i don't think it's any secret, there are some countries that we have great relationships with in terms of the united states has a great back and forth and cooperative relationship for law enforcement purposes and there are other countries for whom that is not at all the case. so, we have been frustrated before, tracing back calls to locations and countries that have a difficult or, you know, overtly hostile relationship with the united states because there's, you know, practically speaking, very little chance that we are going to be able to persuade the lawmakers or, you know, authorities in those jurisdictions to go after citizens. and help us in those investigations. that becomes frustrating. that's where cooperation with

the ftc and other elements of the united states federal government, state department, other law enforcement agencies becomes extremely vital to have that communication back and forth. >> i want to draw a perfect line. my colleagues will correct me if i'm wrong. much of what i call the abusive telemarketing where they are selling home alarm systems, medical alert devices, energy panels, most of that is emanating from the united states. what we are seeing -- and the kingpin telemarketer might have a call center in the philippines or nicaragua, but the core of that operation is in the united states. where we see the international, significant international post is where we are seeing hard core

fraudulent telemarketing. >> right. >> thank you. another question we hear a lot on the first panel about what industry is doing. i would like to hear from each panelest as to what is the most important thing industry does to help you do your job and what could industry do different or better to help you protect consumers from illegal robo calls. maybe start at this end with denise. >> i mean, i think the most helpful information from private industry is helping us locate the originating phone calls and not allow those massive robo calls to keep going through the carrier system. but, you know, obviously the subpoena responses we obtain from the companies in our investigation, i think more outreach and education to the consumers that there are different apps available, certain things to avoid when you get these robo calls is helpful,

especially for senior citizens. we see that especially in the state of florida where we have a great consumer population of senior citizens, they are not aware of the technology that is available. they are more trusting of people that call on the phone and speak to them. they are more likely to send money for the scams and they don't want to be rude and hang up the phone when they probably should. more outreach, informing consumers and family members that those tools are out there and available would greatly assist us from our enforcement side. >> one word, innovate. do what you do best. it is remarkable to see the proliferation and variety of call blocking technology that have developed over the last several years. sitting from the ftc, we are proud of the role we play with these tech know logical developments starting in the 2012 first robo call challenge.

i'm looking at people that visited recently. it's wonderful to come in and tell us what you are doing, tell us how we can assist. the dynamic shift in the marketplace from a few years ago was like call blocking is illegal. we can't do it, don't even say the words to now, concerns with perhaps the unintended consequences of too much call blocking. that is a dynamic marketplace and xktly what we want to see happening. >> so, i think the call authentication standards are developed and that's a great thing that's been happening in this field. as for what can be done, i think it really is a matter of, you know, they have been developed, they are being tested, it's a matter of being deployed as fully and quickly as we can. make sure the industry is working together to bring that out. these systems are going to be

out there and usable to a wide variety of actors. >> for us, it's call blocking. we work very well with the industry. the tele-com industry. make sure it's not arbitrary, it's based on good, objective criteria. at the same time, the fcc made call blocking optional, it's voluntary. one thing we are interested in hearing is, what is difficult about call blocking for some carriers? it is a cost issue? it is other issues? we would like to see more carriers block based on the grounds you can block on. that's part of our worry, to determine how carriers view that and the struggles they are facing. >> from my perspective on the enforcement side, the best thing that the carriers and industry have done for us in the last few

years is and can continue to do is work with us. continue to share information with with us, continue to think of new ways to combat an ever evolving landscape of illegal activity. the fraudsters we are up against are creative. they are highly skilled and very adaptive. when you close off one way they get in, they will explore and expand into another way. so, that presents a challenge that will require law enforcement and industry and consumer groups all to work together. in this space, there's not one of those individual pieces that has all the answers or the ability to control the whole ecosystem and stop it. it really requires every, you know, consumers and government

and industry all working together to solve the problem and to keep talking to each other about the new issues that are coming up when they come up so we can tackle them immediately. >> thank you. one thing that has been mentioned a number of times on the panel is the value of partnerships, whether it's federal-federal, federal-state among government officials. are there things governmental partners could do better or differently in the future to be more effective? >> speaking for us, i think we developed a great relationship with federal trade commission. i think, in my shop, we do a lot of rule making and the ftc has been instrumental in making comments on how we might move forward. also, doing outreach together is a good idea. this is part of that. i think the ftc has terrific

outreach materials and we do as well. making sure consumers understand we are one federal government working for them would be great. a lot of times we get questions around do i file a complaint with the ftc or fcc. >> i think we do a good job at it. you know, i appreciate what mark says and other panelists here, but we have been working cooperative with with the fcc on this issue for however long. state partners have been tremendous, not just florida but we work through n.a.g. with calls on what's happening with the telemarketing front. it's a target rich environment. we all need to be at the table. we are all at the table. >> you know, working with the federal trade commission has been a wonderful experience, going to federal cart, getting the asset freezes, having a receiver take over the business and try to get restitution for

consumers. we, as a state, we are on the groun ground. we are the boots on the ground and look into the maze of shell companies and the bank account that is exist and try to track down the money to seize it and ultimately get it to the consumers and provide injunctive relief like a telemarketing ban or a ban against making deceptive and misrepresentations when it comes to selling goods and services. i think the partnership has been great. we are in communication with the federal communications commission because their targets, some of them are targeted and we are constantly in communication with federal partners and work with different state regulators. in florida, we have the licensing arm of the tell marketing, the department of agriculture. we are constantly working with them to stop the robo calls and also, as lois mentioned, we are constantly sharing information with canada and other foreign

countries, federal partners and various states. >> one question that comes up anytime we are talking consumer protection law is how we can work better with consumer advocates and other non-profit organizations, non-governmental organizations and the like. what is their role in dealing with unwanted robo calls, unlawful robo calls and are there things we could do better working with them to help consumers? throw that out for any panelists respond. i see susan here but i view them as enormous resources. if i have questions about what is going on, i ask them. if there is a particular push i would like them to assist with, i will readily turn to them. i hope and it's been my experience, they will do the same with us.

they have an ability to reach people and through pipelines we don't. we rely on them to do just that. >> i would echo that. we rely tremendously on consumer groups to help us. a lot of our proceedings are paper proceedings, so we depend on their submissions on legal and policy questions. in addition to informing our policy and law, it's important they are helpful in the outreach perspective that they help us get the word out on what we are doing and also able to hear from them what consumers are experiencing every day. they are invaluable. >> consumer complaints drive what i do every day. i look, you know, we look at what consumers are talking about and what the problems they face. they file complaints with us. they file complaints with the ftc. we don't believe in enforcing

solutions for which there are no problems. we go after what consumers tell us we need to go after. right now, that's robocalls. what we hope to get the most out of consumer groups and consumers themselves is information, the actionable intelligence. actionable intel. enough information to start an investigation to solve that problem, find that bad guy that's, you know, making hundreds of millions of illegal robocalls. our work with consumer advocacy groups have been very helpful. we have been able to say, explain, this is what we need in consumer complaints in order for us to pick it up and start the process. it has been great how receptive consumer groups have been. also, working with folks who offer consumer solutions to the problems, also have feedback for us, folks like no more robo and

others will, you know, they have interfaced daily with consumers and they are users. they say, hey, these are the patterns we are seeing. those conversations help inform our enforcement efforts and make my job significantly easier. >> thank you. we have about ten minutes left. i want to pose one last question and let people elaborate on that. the question is, if each panelist could identify what is the most important thing they think the government could do to decrease the prevalence of robocalls, unwanted or unlawful robocalls. i'll start with deneat this time. what is the most important thing we can do to stop unlawful and unwanted robocalls going forward. >> i think it's going after the kingpins of these industry that is are very well known, they are connectors. they connect the different

businesses to each other. they are very sophisticated and constantly have scam that is are evolving. targeting those individuals and going against them with a full force of the law that we can with the tools that we are provided and what remedies were provided under the law. it causes a deterrent effect. i remember, we went into a -- they were selling robocalls, a medical alert device system. they were calling nursing homes and other senior systems saying this is john from shipping, a family member or friend recommended you get this device. it's similar to a life alert device, it's not life alert, it was someone else. so, the consumer thought, oh, my gosh, my family member thinks i need this. it's free, as the robocall said, let me give them the information. lo and behold, the consumer was charged a monthly fee, when they tried to cancel they couldn't.

when we went in the room and saw the large telemarketing room with individuals on the phone with sophisticated dialling systems at their computer and their fingertips and we heard from the business owners that their marketing costs for the robocalls were so cheap, really there was no incentive to stop. when we went in and went in with a receiver and the tomattorneys from the federal trade commission along with ag law, the criminal with the department of agricultural they came with us and we showed them we were serious about stopping this. a lot of telemarketers told us, they didn't realize what they were doing was wrong because they were told something else from their bosses. it causes a deterrent when we go in and seize the personal assets and business assets and later get a court order banning them from the industry and later it

goes to the internet. they cannot find jobs. some will go out in the industry because that's all they know. they are tagged and cannot find a job in the industry. from top-to-bottom, i think really being aggressive with these robocallers and working with our partners and taking a stand does call a deterrent effect and i have seen it firsthand. >> so, three things. one is sustained, relentless law enforcement. i want to tease that out when talking abusive telemarketing, not fraudulent. television, it took years to get a litigation and the president setting $280 million penalty. i say it with caveat, it's on appeal. but, the nature of the telemarketing set up there, the network, essentially you had a

seller saying, i'm not responsible for how my product is markets or telemarketed. this is what we hear time and time again when we are looking at a busive telemarketing. you have the dialer who says, i don't know who is using my platform, how could i possibly know? it's very easy to know. or you have the reseller unwanted call. it's not me. if it's a home warranty, if it's a vacation, whatever. you have the affiliate -- you have the person that is doing the robocall that says press 1 if you want a home warranty saying i don't know what i'm carrying on that, i don't know the mechanism. on law enforcement part of our job at the ftc is push the case law, develop more cases like dish. the case you are referring to is life watch. the telemarketing network where the seller is saying i'm not

responsible for how my product is marketed. moving the case law so there's greater clarity and deterrence is a top priority from where i sit. the other two arias, innovation, sparing technology, ensuring the marketplace is free to develop the tools that are needed. third problem is always outreach and consumer education. you will hear that on the next panel. the materials we put out are first rate and we partner with fcc, we partner with the states. the message is not just hang up if you don't recognize. the message is, also, here is information on great call blocking tools and other things to do to protect your privacy. thanks. >> i have been here talking about spoofing and efforts to combat spoofing. forgive me. feel free of accuse me of tunnel vision. it does address some of the most

egregious types of froud and provides more information into the whole system that allows carriers, third party developers, hand set manufacturers and consumers themselves to deal with these problems firsthand. >> i agree. the biggest thing is call authentication. in the interim, we are facilitate call blocking and do greater enforcement. in the end, spoofing is the big part of the problem. the third party blocking apps and devices are somewhat dependent on spoofing, not all of them, but spoofing is a way to evade that it's longer term, but where everyone should be focused. >> yeah, i would echo the same thing. if you are in a tunnel, i'm there with you. i 100% agree. rolling out call authentication is, i think, going to make the biggest difference in the government's ability to stamp

out illegal abusive robocalling and also the ability of the carriers to exercise, you know, to aid their customers in blocking those calls their customers also do not want. that is the biggest piece and then the second piece is, in the meantime, as mark was leading to, in the meantime, it's incumbent on all of us to continue to work together and bring the expertise and resources that each one of us has, consumers, government and industry together, to combat the problem while the tech know logical upgrades are being completed. >> great. thank you very much. i think we are out of time. i want to thank all of our panelists for sharing their insights and information about the fabulous work they are trying to do to deal with illegal robocalls. thank you very much.

[ applause ] >> thank you, again, tom and all the panelists. our next featured speaker is ftc commissioner, carol mcsweeney. commissioner mcsweeney. >> what a polite audience, thank you very much. i'm going to say, first of all, good morning and what a pleasure it is to be here this morning. thank you to the fcc for hosting this discussion and thanks very much to all the federal trade commission staff who have been working tirelessly on this issue for a number of years. it's been a pleasure getting to know them while i have been at the ftc. you can see from the discussion

on the last panel, working collaboratively with the fcc, with state partners to fight this robocalls with the tools they have. i want to commend them for their efforts. i'm going to start with the usual disclaimer that i'm giving you my own views, not the official views of the ftc, but i think it is the official view of the ftc that robocalls are a top consumer complaint year other year and we need to use all our tools to combat the problem. i want to start by noting, though, the origins of some of our authorities in this area. privacy and more specifically, americans rights to win control over their data is, once again, in the news. it bears noting the origin of the do not call registry stemmed from a bipartisan effort to protect americans privacy in 2003 and unanimously passed the senate. at the time, democrats and

republicans came together to find a way to protect themselves of unwanted telemarketing calls. i realize we are here because technology and scammers find ways around protections. more on that in a minute. i don't think that makes providing consumers stronger things -- the news and events underscore american consumers deserve stronger protections for their data. the technology we are all using in our daily lives is increasingly sophisticated. the amount of data we are sharing is increasingly intimate. without proper protections, our own data can be and potentially is being used against us. the incentives drive toward ever greater collection and use of data and the fcc, ftc and other expert consumer regulators have a role to play in providing protections for consumers. without stronger and more resilient framework, one that

includes requiring often choices for the monotieization of sensitive information, american consumers are going to be left vulnerable at a time we can least afford to be. we need stronger things and that includes data security, transparency for data brokers. it's time for democrats and republicans to come together, again, to make progress like they did 15 years ago. so, i'm happy to be here, today, to say that i think it's very encouraging to hear how the ftc, the fcc and our state partners are engaged in unrelenting efforts to shut down law violators that continue to flood our phones with illegal calls. here, we can all agree that having as many law enforcement partners on the beat as possible to safeguard consumer privacy and protect consumers from fraud

and abuse is a no brainer. multiple enforcement partners level different expertise and jurisdictional authority to combat the threat. i'm particularly proud of the enforcement action the ftc announced against a home security company and telemarketers. the alliance defendants made 2 million illegal calls to consumers, violating the law is no way to sell security. as we know, even with many cops on the beat, the calls keep coming. consumers need effective tools to stop the seemingly endless calls and meaningful choices to select the best tool for them. today, there are a growing number of call blocking tools and choices. when i first came to the commission in 2014, consumers had few options to stop unwanted calls. as a result of the federal trade commission first robocall

challenge, it was available for voice over i.p. home phones, a good start, but few options for wireless and little to no options offered by the providers. after three more ftc challenges and continuous work with the industry and all our partners, today the landscape is different. a number of providers offer some types of call blocking services directly to their voice over ip or wireless customers are both. wireless customers now have a number of call blocking apps to choose from. ctia, who we'll hear from on the next panel, put out a list of 40 apps for ios android phones alone. why aren't these tools having a greater impact and what can we do to help? first off, many consumers don't know that there are more tools available today to stop illegal or unwanted calls. we are working to change that. with today's event, the upcoming

expo next month and through consumer education, i'm delighted the ftc, too old, is putting out additional consumer educational materials through our office of business and education. second, these tools aren't available to all consumers. not all providers offer call blocking solutions to customers. why not? when consumers pay for phone service, shouldn't they expect they are getting the best available protection from illegal calls? finally, customers with copper lan lines have few options to stop calls. there's no app for that. the best way to fill the gap and what i'm excited to hear more about is empower and expect providers to deploy solutions that will reach every consumer. effective call blocking tools should be available to all consumers. of course, trust must be restored to caller id information through the

framework for caller id sooner rather than later. i know the ftc stands ready to do our part and make sure consumers understand the tools. with that, i'm excited to turn it over to the next panel for a discussion of the solutions and tools that are available to consumers. thank you very much. [ applause ] >> thank you, commissioner mcsweeney. as commissioner mcsweeney said, our third panel is entitled solutions and tools for consumers. it is being moderated by julie, chief of the fcc's office of engineering and technology. so, i invite julie to come up and all of the panelists to come up as well.

>> okay, i'll turn it over to julie. >> give everybody a minute to get settled. so, good morning. still morning. a lot of pressure on this panel because it's the last panel before lunch. so, this panel is going to talk about some of the solutions. i know in my home, when the phone rings, the first thing we do is listen for the

announcement of the id. i get a lot of calls from unavailable and out of area. when there's a number that you see, perhaps in new york where you might have relatives and you wonder, you don't recognize the number, should i pick it up? maybe it's somebody calling about something's happened with my brother or sister. do i take a chance in not answering it? so you go ahead, sometimes. i know my wife will immediately say to me, why did you pick that up? so, you know, this panel is going to talk about solutions, so the pressure is on for me if i don't have something good to say when i get home, i might not get in the door. so, obviously, there's a lot of terrific work going on. just to start, i would like to have each of our panelists introduce themselves and say a little bit about their

organizations. we'll start with alex. >> my name is alex. i'm the ceo of a company we are a seattle based business. one of the business lines is to help our partners, primarily wireless carriers and smartphone oems deal with this robocall plague. we also have apps that we provide and download by consumers. that's not a significant part of our business. we have the largest team in the industry of data scientists and engineers dedicated to determining who are the bad callers, who are the good callers, which is equally important. and provide as much information at the fingertips of our user base so they can make informed decisions. >> i'm jim. i'm here with the alliance hotel

industry solutions. here in the context that shaken, which is going to be discussed here today, came from the task force which is a joint task force. i have been fortunate enough to have been involved in that activity since the very beginning and we decided it had to be called shaken because it wasn't stir. >> i'm alex. i'm the ceo of a call blocking app for mobile phones. we supply the e-mail robocall index, our estimate of what the world looks like in terms of robocalls every month. we have traction in having blocked well over 1 billion calls at this point. >> hi, i'm margot sanders, i work with the consumer law center. we are a national public interest law firm that represents consumers before congress and the federal agencies. >> hey, everyone.

i am a vp at ctia, we represent the wireless industry from the carriers to manufacturers. we have been working on fighting illegal robocalls for some time. we were cig nif kaptsignificant in the strike force. we helped draft that report. after the strike force ended, we took on the work and developed a ctia robocall working group that meets every week. we are continuely working on robocall abbatement solutions. we are a member of fcc's kau authentication working group and we are working hard on getting the structure for it up and running so we can on board all the industry to fight that. and we are also a member of the fcc's consumer advisory committee as was mentioned in the first panel, many

recommendations on call blocking last year. i'm looking forward to talking about all the great tools that our own carrier members are doing and the app system represented by the two alex's on the panel. excited to hear about it. thanks. >> i'm nat wood. it's our responsibility for letting regular people understand how to have better experiences as consumers and to help businesses comply with consumer law and be protected in the marketplace. >> so, to kick it off, talk a little bit about how consumers protect themselves against robocalls. i thought maybe we would start on the government side and thread that in, also, as we are having our discussions. so, it is a privilege and honor to be working so closely with ftc. terrific things happen when

cross government agencies work together. this is a tough problem and we are all pulling together to solve it. there is terrific information online at the fcc website. we have pamphlets in the back. if you are watching on the web and want to check it out, wi www.fcc.gov/robocalls. there's a lot of information there and resources available. let's turn it over to matt and talk about what fcc is doing. >> what i would tell somebody frustrated by unwanted calls, there's a lot of great resources. i'm excited to hear more about the tools the industry is coming out with and where we are headed with call authentication. a few years ago, it wasn't so ease stoi get this advice. the services are affected and becoming so more and more. we put out information. if you are in the room, you can

get this on the table. online, ftc.gov/calls. if you want to take advantage of call blocking technology, what kind of phone are you using? if you have a mobile phone, you may want to download an app. some are free. some are provided through the carrier services. the second thing you can do is see if there's built-in features in your phone. if you have a lan line, you may need to buy a device and there are some that use blacklists or white lists to limit the calls and make sure only calls you want are getting through. if you have internet phone and many people, it's not that easy to tell, you check with your carrier. it's a lot of the same advice we give for people with a mobile phone. there might be blocking services that either stop the calls or

have the information show up about whether it's possibly a scam call or telemarketer or put those messages straight throw voice mail. i hope you check those resources out. the do not call registry still has value, especially in signaling. it's not necessarily going to stop a lot of illegal robocalls. if you are on the do not call registry and you get a call from somebody attempting to sell you something, they are not respecting the registry. if they are not respecting that law, you probably don't want to do business with them. if you get unwanted robocall, definitely hang up. there's no reason to stay on the line. keeping yourself informed about the scams that are out there is always a good idea. one of the ways to do that is ftc.gov/scams and sign up for scam alerts straight to your e-mail box. >> the telephone consumer

protection app not only provides tools for public enforcement, government enforcement against robocallers, but provides the ability of consumers to hire an attorney and bring action against robocallers themselves. that's a valuable tool people should know about and go into court and get $500 for every illegal robocall they received. >> i'd be rich. so, let's hear a little bit, i know there's a lot of activity that's been going on across industry in trying to develop solutions to prevent the calls from getting through, the illegal calls from getting through in the first place. so, if we can hear a little bit from the service providers and what they are doing, jim, start with you. >> i have a little tunnel vision around shaken.

i want to step back and put that into perspective. it's not the first thing service parties have done. in a sense, basic caller id is a tool for identifying robocalls, calls you don't want to receive. white list, block list, built on anonymous calls. a number of services. easy spoofing undermines the effectiveness of those as we see. that led to the apps, either internal ones or service writers have internal apps and the third party one that is are represented here today. those help, but, again, spoofing makes that harder for them to do their job and that's where shaking comes in, not as a solution. that's important. shaken, by itself, is not a solution. it's an enabling technology that provides reliable information into these apps and can make them fundamentally more effective in the long term and help with the enforcement initiatives through the ability it puts to trace calls back to

the origin in a reliable way. so, it's a key enabler is the key thing, but in a long context. >> could i follow up? could you say a little bit, is this something the consumer needs to do with its provider and can you say a little more about what shaken is? if you are explaining it to a lame person? >> you asked a long question, but -- yes. so, at its core, shaken allows the original service provider to sign the call and basically to attest to what they know. that's a key thing. all call that is are assigned are not the same. if they know that's your number, they can sign, this is your number. if they don't know it's your number, but they know who originated it, this is my customer, i know who they are, i know how to find them if they do something bad.

you can do a lower level, partial. this is somewhat reliable. then you have the ones where it's a gateway coming in from who knows where. i don't have any idea. i know where it entered my network, which is useful for call blocking and also tracing. then, the other thing, the receiving end, that information is verified, has to be signed, so you can't mess with it in between. the other key thing is, when that is signed, the service provider attaches a unique ridge nation id, which is just a string that can be used and traced back that allows you to identify when you go back to follow up that, yes, i now know where that came from, not just a service provider. just provides more information about the call, primarily to

assist those who add that into the mix of what they already do. >> to help stem the tide? >> precisely. >> okay. kristen, maybe you can talk on the wireless side. >> sure. since jim focused on call authentication and trace back, we are all involved in that. i'm going to focus on tools wireless carriers have in place that are not dependent on a customer downloading an app, then i'll get into the app ecosystem that exploded over the last couple years. a few examples, at&t launched a product called protect. that was in december of 2016. it's a free network service. it allows customers with iphones and voice enabled android hand sets to automatically block fraudulent calls. it flags them so the customer can choose whether to answer it or not. and using an interface provided

by the at&t call protect act, they have an app, customers can manually block and unlimited number of telephone numbers for 30-day intervals. you can download the app across the app ecosystem app stores or the at&t website. at&t, on the wire line side, also made call protect available to ip wire loan home phone users. alex will talk about this, but they have partnered on this initiative. through this, they blocked, to date, 3.5 billion unwanted robocalls. sprint offers a service as well, premium caller id service on a subscription basis. it includes for android smartphones the ability to identify higher percentage of nuisance calls and an option to block them as well. they work with a company. t-mobile launched a product

called scam id. this was last year at this time, march, 2017. this is automatic network based. it's free for a postpaid t-mobile customers and metro pcs customers. it identifies calls from known scammers on smartphones and feature phones. if a scam call is detected, caller id places scam likely on the device. it gives the option to answer or permanently block the number. there's another product called scam block that customers can choose to use, it's also free. that service will allow calls from known scammers blocked. t-mobile is working with a company called privacy star who has an app in the app marketplace. they have blocked more than 3 billion scam calls, tagged since the launch of the product.

verizon, right now, they are trialing a free robocall labeling solution. it's called spam alerts. this is for all wire line customers with caller id. this includes copper customers and fios digital, which is great. the feature is warning customers about robocalls and they also, it's available to the entire wire line customer base in a more robust version with thousands of additional numbers in production next month. they also worked with the company you all know, no more robo, to develop a one-click solution that simplifies fios ability to sign up for that third party blocking service. on the wireless side, they offer all customers who subscribe to the caller name id service, a feature at no additional charge that identified the spam calls and displays the level of risk

with a risk meter. they are working with a company. besides all the tools our carriers are in play today, the app ecosystem exploded in the last two years. in 2016, we studied, across the board, ios, android, windows and blackberry. at that time, there were a lot of apps, over 85 call blocking or labeling apps available. we have recently went through and looked at it, again, and now there are 550 call block apps available. that is a 495% increase in those apps since we launched our website dedicated to educating consumers on this issue. i think the marketplace is working with the amount of tools. we need to finish up our work on call authentication. that is key. for now, consumers have something to work with.

. >> i want to hear about the third party providers, then ask questions on the consumer side. alex, if you could talk a little bit about what you have been doing, what your products are. >> sure. so, again, our company is hiya. we have apps you can download on to iphone or android. there's a lot of choice for consumers. there's over 500 apps, which is astounding. i think the app stores are pretty effective in guiding consumers to which are the more effective versus the less effective apps. i'm not concerned about that. i'm concerned about the fact that here in the u.s., we work across borders. in the u.s. market, the iphone is a bit crippled relative to what google has done on the

android side. for all of us here in the room, i could confidently say if you download an android app that is well rated, you can probably avoid most nuisance calls, you know, right away. on iphone, if you are downloading an app, you have to go through settings, then a phone menu, then you get down to call blocking identification to make this work. so, most consumers don't understand that, so i think half of the u.s. market, even though there are apps available for iphone, most consumers are unable to activate these services. that's a problem. otherwise, i think on the operator side, we are excited to be working with an announced partner and other folks as well. what i am concerned about there,

though, is, the industry's ability to find the right solutions. it certainly doesn't have to be ours. it's a competitive marketplace, there's other companies out there. maybe to look is controversial. i think this is such an important issue. we have to solve this. how soon the spoofing issue is huge. there's a lot that companies can do to combat bad callers and spoofing as well. but, you know, how fast can we actually move along on this? i think jim is doing great work. we are eager to see something coming out. i think there's, you know, how a governing authority be placed into action and, you know, we are very eagerly awaiting. that is the foundation that will

be stronger if the spoofing issue can be dealt with. hundreds of companies are building services. >> e-mail? >> i want to talk about some of the other apps first and how e-mail differs. the basic idea of a call-blocking app is to decide when a number is a bad guy and not ring. that's sort of the default behavior of these and everybody has different ways they decide if a number is a bad guy. so e-mail, we took a slightly different approach, which is we didn't think hanging up was good enough. so when we detect somebody is a bad guy, we have actually replaced your mobile voicemail, and we play the bad guys that do do do, this number is out of service tone. so what that does is stops them from making the call. and so we took the approach that, like, a lot of others, you want to try to block this at the source. the carriers try to do it at the network level. we try to fool the bad guys. that's one thing we do. second thing we realized, it's not black and white. it's easy to say good guy, bad

guy. certainly an irs scammer is a bad guy and cvs telling you your prescription has arrived is a good guy. but there is the middle, where robocalls, debt collectors who called 50 times or telemarketers, hard to tell what's going on, whether they're wanted or not. we took an approach that says if we think it's in the middle, not sure if it's a bad guy, we route them to voicemail without ringing your phone. turns out your voicemail has some nice effects, we can play the greeting and take the middle of the road people, throw them into voicemail and let consumers decide what they want to do. >> so there's pluses and minuses in having lots of things to choose from. on the one hand, it's great. you can kind of sort through and the other is sometimes you're overwhelmed. anybody can comment on what the consumer's reactions, their experiences have been with this? their -- you know, are they effective? i stumped the panel. >> there's a lot of apps out there that are rated that have

high ratings. and i think, you know, some of the solutions rolled out by the carriers have been very effective. i c i think we just heard stats that lead up to 6 billion phone calls from bad actors being blocked recently. so i think, you know, it's starting to work. there's a lot more work that needs to be done still. i am always concerned about, you know, maybe some actors -- some companies being overly aggressive in -- and too quickly fighting the bad robo callers. and basically i think, you know, really what's needed is a scalpel in terms of ferreting out the bad callers from the good ones. and i think -- i am a bit concerned that there might be too many solutions that are more like a bazooka that can actually prevent legitimate calls from getting through. >> so one thing we were surprised to find out is that consumers actually want the

bazooka. so -- an anecdote on our android app, we have a white list feature. and so the white list feature means if a caller is not in your contacts, your phone won't ring. now, we did this as a setting. it's buried. you have to find it. i think you've got to tap four things. it's not even called white list. we named it badly. we just put it out there to say, does anybody want this. turns out at the rate it's going, more consumers will have that on in our app than have it off. that's a bazooka. if it's not somebody i already know, send them to voicemail. >> i'll just note, on our web page, this is the consumer tips robocalls page on our cti website. in order to help -- try to help consumers parse through it, we have listed on each of the pages the droid ios, blackberry and windows, the top apps, and they're based on user ratings, number of downloads and most recurrent version date. but i have also attached pdfs of the entire app ecosystem per platform. because i -- you know, i don't

pick and choose. i want consumers to decide. but there is a way to, you know, help consumers at least try some of the top-rated ones. >> whenever we give consumer advice, we try to play out exactly what we're saying to make sure it's useful. so, of course, when call-blocking apps first started coming out and even after the ftc challenge, we would test some of these just to see if our general advice that this is a good idea was useful or not. and my personal experience a few years ago was downloading a third-party app but then the call tried to ring through, through the app, as opposed to through my regular phone app. and ultimately, we decided we weren't really ready for that. so the fact we're saying now really people should check out these apps is kind of significant. and there's a few ways that people can try to sort out what's best for them. going to ctia. if you want to check a list that's been curated can be really useful. also just going on to the app stores and typing in your carrier with call blocking.

you ought to be able to bring some up then. one of the things that consumers tell us is that their preferred price point is zero. so the first place a lot of people are going to want to start is to see what's offered through their carrier. i've been using one of the services that we have been talking about that's offered through my carrier, and, you know, it's night and day from what it was just a few years ago in that now the caller rings through, through my regular phone app. i'm using ios. it labels some calls and blocks others. and provides a lot of information. >> i know alex touched on this, a couple of you actually touched on it. how do you distinguish the bad actors, the things you want to block from the things that should get through? can you say a little bit again, not for technical, but for consumers, about how does this work? so that i make sure -- maybe

some choose to take the bazooka. but others, you know, like i talked about, well, maybe this is a call i really wanted to have come through. how do you sort those things? >> we're looking at a bit over 30 attributes. and our team in seattle has a whole set of advanced algorithms to use machine-learning techniques to on a real-time basis detect or really assign a reputation to the caller. it's very -- it's really a daunting technical challenge. it's -- one of the things i'm excited about is we don't actually have a so-called black list. we are looking at every call as an event on its own. and depending on what else we have seen on the network, we might choose to assign the call a bad or good reputation. and the worst kind of reputation would result in a call actually

being blocked. very few calls actually result in being blocked, and have that reputation. but those are, of course, the ones that get a lot of attention, and rightfully so. because those calls can actually be dangerous. that's a fake irs agent demanding money, and we're seeing big rise in that volume. i think we are seeing a 1200% increase this year compared to last year in the irs scam. but there's all these shades of gray. so, you know, then there's calls that we consider to be, you know, spam or of a nuisance nature. and it's very subjective. you know, who considers that call nuisance? just talking party affiliation. when fund raising calls are coming through, there's about a 50/50 chance that the person actually wants to receive a call from that party, for example. i think there's been some talk about school alerts and so forth. of course, it's important to

receive those notifications. given that our company is premised on fighting these bad calls, i think i can probably say a little bit more comfortably that there are other examples too in terms of even debt collectors, for example. i changed my credit card recently. and had our service blocked out from the debt collector getting through to me, either my service would have been terminated or my credit rating would have gone down the tubes. so it's important that some of these calls get through. there's over 2 million people employed in call centers in the u.s. never mind outside. and, you know, a lot of these people are doing important work, and they need to get through to consumers. so we take this false/positive thing very serious thing. our reported false positive rate is .01%. and we're very proud of that. >> and for others -- i'm particularly interested. what are the sorts of things, if you're trying -- as a service provider, that are the clues

that this is an unwanted call or illegal call? >> i'm not going to talk about the specific clues, but i want to step back and talk about how we need to approach this solution or this problem to be effective. again, the key thing is how do you identify the bad actors and how do you identify the good actors who might look a little bit like bad actors if you're not doing the right thing. and shaken will help a little bit with that, but it doesn't solve it. dr. evil can still go get a phone number and it will be fully attested and it's still dr. evil. that doesn't mean it's not a bad call. so that's part of it. but it's not all of it. and you can also be assured that as soon as we work out some technique to differentiate between a good and bad actor, they're going to change the techniques. spoofing works -- is used today because it works. when it stops working, they'll do something else. and where that's going -- that's the bad news, if you will. the good news, where that deposdeposgoes,

you need to have the stakeholders. the stakeholders in the shaken ecosystem, in the call blocking apps and the users, people who actually want to get through. and the stakeholders were all those have to work together to identify the techniques. and that's not a one-shot thing. because, again, as soon as it starts to work, they'll change. and that's why you need to have -- ensure that structure is flexible and ongoing and it's flexible so when they try something different, you come back, you look at it, you work out what needs to be done, and you change the way you're doing it on a time scale that is consistent with their time scale. so that flexibility and quick response of all the stakeholders is key. and if you have that, you're well-positioned. if you don't have that, it's going to end badly. >> go ahead. >> so we behave somewhat similar in that we have what we call a dynamic black list and dynamic white list. a black list is a whole bunch of factors of behavior of a given number that makes us believe

that this particular call from this number is a bad thing. one of the things we do that we focus a lot of effort on, though, is recognizing the good calls to make sure we can let them through. so cvs calling with their pharmacy prescription is a good example of that. so we developed audio fingerprinting that looks at the voicemails left, and from that we can tell when another number is leaving something similar, is it good or bad. so a particular number called, we know that's cvs, now another number calls, leaves the same sort of message, we know that's also a cvs number. so for us, it's looking at the content of the interactions that's been key in dynamically determining good, bad or in between. >> so i want to talk about a little bit, the difference between good and bad. and i think that there may be some difference of opinion on which group different callers fit. looking at umail's robocallin' detection, the top 20

robocallers in february in the nation, 16 of them were debt collectors. they're not -- two of them looked like were scammers. 16 were debt collectors. so according to many debt collectors' manuals, they call as many as ten times a day to collect each account. many student loan borrowers have eight accounts. so they're subject to getting 80 calls a day from a debt collector. now, is that debt collector a good or a bad guy? the -- i'll just leave it at that. >> depends whether there's a debt. >> well, even if there's a debt, 80 calls a day may be too much. ye >> yeah, absolutely. anybody else on the distinction? nope? so the solutions -- i mentioned at the start, the number that looks like it comes from new

york and is spoofing. are the things that we have been talking about effective against spoofing? how does that come into play? >> yeah, there's some -- a bit of a myth out there that nothing can be done against spoofing until shaken takes place. or comes -- is fully implemented. and i think we need to get it in place as quickly as possible. but we're seeing almost 30% of nuisance calls today are the so-called neighbor spoofing scam. and these are typically scam calls. and if you're not familiar with it, it's basically, you know, these bad actors, they'll call you, whatever number you have, and originally the number has the same six digits in the beginning. sometimes actually replicate your whole number so they call you from your own number and think some people are curious to see who is calling.

but usually it's the first six digits. and, you know, we have some techniques to actually ferret that out. and, you know, one technique would be to block any call that comes in from those first six digits, but then you might block out people who just happen to randomly have a similar phone number to you. now, i can't tell you what technique we're using, because if any of these guys are watching this video -- >> i'm sure they wouldn't. >> that technique would no longer be effective. but that is an example of spoofing where actually, you know, if you're smart about how you go about it, you can actually block out those calls. >> trying to build on alex's point about you can do a lot without shaken. the way i look at shaken is, again, very effective techniques that have been built today. but in many sense, because of spoofing, the foundation has weaknesses. and what shaken is doing is providing a firm foundation for

those things. they'll be the same apps, they'll just be able to do that much more effect more powerful and accurate assessment. that's why we talk about it as an enabler. again, we don't have to wait for it, but i'm sure it will help the sooner it's there. >> so two comments. one is we're already seeing the neighborhood spoofrs get smarted by changing their definition of a neighborhood. it used to be the first six digits would match. then we started seeing the five digits would match or four digits would match. so turns out it's a really hard problem. and what's happened with our user base, they're deciding i would rather just white list. you know what, there's too many calls getting through. i don't want them any more. i'm going to restrict my contacts. everybody else who calls me i want to hear from again, i'll put in my contacts. so i think consumers are sort of taking it into their own hands and dealing with that problem. >> so let's talk a little bit about the progress on caller i.d. authentication.

we've been touching on this. where are we on that, and what's involved in accomplishing it? yeah, go ahead. >> so this is, again, step back. so it was -- in january of 2017, the shaken spec was published. shortly after that, partnered with new star to provide a test bed, a shaken test bed available to the industry. we have -- that is continuing to be available at no cost as of today. we've had, as of recently, over half dozen provider -- either vendors or providers who have completed testing. we have a similar number who are actively in the process of testing, as well as others who are watching and getting ready. so all of that is proceeding in terms of the infrastructure to deploy that. in terms of the governance authority, we issued the governance -- the shaken governance framework document,

about the middle of last year, and our intention when we did that was that, frankly, by about now, we would have the governance authority set up and beginning to get the processes in place. i talked about the need for the various stakeholders to share information and to work together to work out how we respond to that. and that's the kind of thing that that would do. to be honest, the trust anchor, notice of inquiry, kind of slowed that down a little bit. and we're not set up and running now. we're hoping that as the -- that the nancy cata working group finishes up its work over the next month or so. that that will get that process up and running. and really the key thing here is that because of that need for all the stakeholders to be involved, to understand each other's problems, and perspectives, and be prepared for reacting to the bad guys, you actually need to have the

governance authority up and running, almost before you actually have it deployed to the network. you don't want to deploy it and then figure out how to manage the thing after the fact. so it's moving forward. we want it to move forward faster. >> and -- >> i would just add, yes. so we have the -- we have the framework developed, the testing is being done. i encourage all carriers to get on board with that testing if you haven't tested already. and as far as the nancys work, we're working towards that report with our recommendations by may of this year, and i'm hopeful that the fcc takes the recommendation, whatever it is, because we haven't finished it. to set up that governing structure as quickly as possible so we can get this going. >> so i think we heard this question on the last panel, which was really focused, i think, more on the enforcement side, what do we do after it happens and just to discourage it through enforcement.

but what, from your perspective, can the government do to encourage continued development of solutions across the board? to anyone? >> you go ahead. >> well, i was going to say, i think what the goal should be is a vibrant ecosystem of different apps. i mean, carriers should do what they can do. but you really want a whole bunch of different apps, because that's where all the interesting innovation is taking place. not just our app, but i look at a lot of apps all of the time and there's lots of interesting ideas on how to get better at stopping these calls. so the question then becomes how do you get that ecosystem. and the main way you get it is by providing access to the platform, having -- driving the carriers to open more things up to the app so they have the data that they use or network elements they can use to drive the handset makers and carriers to make it easy to sign up and use these apps. like alex gave a great example on the iphone. where it's really a bear to turn on blocking. he left out that apple has a

fixed list. you can have up to a million and a half numbers you have to load as an app into the iphone to say don't let these ring. block these things. that's a crazy way to do it, versus android, which at least let's apps get into a call and then hang up. although android has its own set of problems there. so i think getting the government to push to drive an ecosystem would be really good for everybody. because i think you never know where the next great solution is going to be. >> so it's interesting to me that the engineers think the fix is with the engineering, and the lawyers think the fix is with the law. >> welcome to my life. >> actually, i -- as a lawyer, i think the fix is with the engineering. but the law still has a very important place. >> of course. >> the -- as was mentioned in the previous panel, there was a decision last week by the d.c. circuit court that really throws the definition of auto dialer back to the fcc.

and that is a really critical question that will have tremendous ramifications about what types of calls are considered covered by that consumer protection law. if the fcc moves forward as the calling industry would like it to and does not include within that definition many of the call -- many of the types of equipment that are currently generating the calls, then those calls won't be covered by that law. and all the human -- all the calls on which a human is actually talking to the receiver, the person who is getting the call, there will be no coverage. no ability -- no requirement that the consumer has to consent. much more importantly, no ability of the consumer to say, stop calling me and have a law require that that caller stop calling. as i described a minute ago with

the debt collection calls, the ability to -- for a consumer to be able to say stop calling for these automated calls is really a critical consumer protection. whether that caller is in the white list or the gray list or the black list. the ftc rules, which are also very important, do not cover these row bow calls that have a human at the end. they only cover prerecorded and artificial voice. so the whole burden really will be on the federal communications commission to make sure to cover these calls so the consumers have some ability to control them. >> got it. >> i don't have an opinion on enforcement, but i think in terms of what the fcc and ftc have been doing as a newcomer to d.c., we're pretty much holed up in our little tech bubble on the west coast most of the time. it's been really nice to see

what an effective spark was -- you know, took place a couple years ago here. and it's -- you know, stoked all sorts of good conversation around spoofing and, you know, actual -- you know, actions taking place now. i am a little bit concerned about there being maybe too much discourse about coverage or, you know, the ability to -- to detect these bad callers. and maybe not as much on the false positives. and we're taking a very long-term view at this. and i ultimately want there to be as much innovation and, you know, solutions available to customers. but, you know, i think there was an example just recently with self-driving car hitting someone, and now that's shut down innovation temporarily for self-driving cars. i can think of all sorts of

awful scenarios that would take place if too many calls are blocked. and i'm not going to give specific examples. but they are -- some are actually life or death. and i don't think that it's necessarily government government's role to enforce how this happens. but i think just elevating the cost of false positives more into discussion i think would be really healthy, to make sure that, you know, innovation will continue in the long run, as rapidly as possible. >> information-sharing is really important and valuable. i think a specific area where continuing to have a conversation among industry and industry associations and government will be in the labelling of calls. there's been some really interesting work going on. it's going to be even more important as the new qualification standards come into effect. so that people understand that if they get a green or a yellow

or a red, what that means. and not be unique across every type of device. the other kind of information-sharing that's really important is the actual data about calls and what people are reporting. we're really happy that we have been able to take the information that people report to us. it's really important that if people have a bad experience, experience a scam call to report it to ftc.gov/complaint. they can always report unwanted calls if they're on the national do not call registry, do not call.gov and making that information available on a daily basis so that can help make the algorithm smarter, better inform the black lists. and so both types of information-sharing are really important. >> good. we're down to the last few minutes that we're scheduled for our panel. any final thoughts that you wanted to add that we didn't

cover? >> i'm just glad the lawyers and the engineers are all on the same panel. >> let me just ask -- go ahead. >> i was just saying, it really is exciting, the amount of innovation. lois and i go back to having worked in the national do not call registry, now 15 or more years ago. and, you know, we get it. it doesn't stop unwanted calls now. but we feel like we've come into an area where there's a lot of really promising technologies that are doing that and are going to do it even better. so we hope people, you know, regular people will take advantage of those and check out some of these apps and services and devices. if they go to ftc.gov/calls, then learn generally how to do that, and places like ctia and checking out apps in the app store will give a good result. >> i would just say the work is not done, and we're going to continue working at it with partnership with the fcc, ftc, the wire line, wireless

industry. everyone at this table, the third-party app developers. and unfortunately, the illegal robocallers are going to keep at it. and so we can't just, you know, sit on our laurels, be even after call auto then at this occasion gets up and running, even with the 550 apps out there, we've got to keep fighting every day. >> go ahead. >> i would actually support that totally. this is a long haul. it will get better. it probably will, unfortunately, take longer than we would like. and we need to keep at it. one of the things i always -- when people talk about solutions to this problem, i think it's the wrong mind-set. this is a long struggle we need to keep working at. again, it will get better, but it will never be quote, unquote, solved. so let's keep going. >> i won't yield so whoever gets -- it will be an ongoing battle. i want to thank the panelists and this is encouraging all the work that has been done. and there's progress being made.

i know we're still, you know -- working to try to have the numbers turn in the opposite direction. >> i think we do. >> and it just underscores the importance, i think, of government industry, third-party providers, and all of the stakeholders, the consumer interests, as well. all pulling together to tackle this problem. so thank you. and give you a round of applause. [ applause ] thank you to julie and our third panel panelists. finally, we have closing remarks from svetlana ganz, chief of staff, to acting chairman

woolhausen. svetlana. >> good afternoon, everyone. i am going to close out the show by providing a brief summary of kind of what we have heard during today's program. you've heard that robocalls are on the rise, due to the advances of technology. the ftc receives 400,000 complaints about unwanted calls a day. there's been 4.5 million complaints in 2017, and $9.5 billion in consumer losses. we are working very hard with a federal communications commission to fight robocalls. this is a top priority at the federal trade commission and at the fcc. it is imperative that federal, state industry and consumer groups collaborate to find a solution to the problem, and that it's a holistic solution. we also heard about data-sharing and how it's extremely important to fight robocalls. data-sharing is an important and

multiple respects. one is for consumers to continue to notify the ftc and fcc concerning unwanted robocalls. and to also file complaints online. the ftc is publishing complaint data daily, which is helping in the fight. lastly, companies are sharing information with each other to trace back illegal robocalls. so all of these data-sharing mechanisms are very important. we talked about some potential solutions or strategies, not to say solutions. we talked about potential legislative solutions, including repealing the common carrier exemption of ftc jurisdiction. we spoke about strengthening the fcc's authority in elevating the statute of limitation from one year to two years. and we also talked about the potential to increase penalties for robocallers. we also talked about industry solutions. we called industry to act to

outreach, to conduct additional outreach for consumers on call-blocking technologies and to continue to innovate and deploy new technologies in this area. we also talked about which companies can thrive and innovate in this area. lastly, we talked about the wealth of potential consumer solutions for this problem. we heard that there are over 550 apps available in the app store to try to curb illegal robocalls, and that there are some resources available from ctia and other outlets on ranking them to enable consumers to make an informed choice about the apps that work for them. as you know, we will be having a robocall tech expo on april 23rd. flyers are available in the back of the room. we are still seeking exhibitors, so if you are a carrier or an

app developer or another technology company in the space, that's working on a solution, we welcome you to reach out to the fcc to showcase your work at the robocall tech expo on april 23rd. additional information is available at the back of the room. and lastly, i like to just reference the two websites that folks can turn to for information concerning robocalls. one is the ftc website. www.ftc.gov/calls. the other is the fcc website. fcc.gov/robocalls. so with that, thank you very much for your attention. we look forward to working with you all on potential solutions and strategies going forward. so thank you very much. [ applause ]

early this morning, the u.s. senate approved $1.3 trillion in government funding, sending the legislation to president trump's desk, less than 24 hours before a deadline to avert another government shutdown. senators voted 65-32 on the measure, while over the simple majority needed to approve it.

it goes to the white house where the hill reports trump is expected to sign it. but the president this morning tweeted, i'm considering a veto of the omnibus spending bill, based on the fact that the 800,000-plus daca recipients have been totally abandoned by the democrats. not even mentioned in the bill. and the border wall, which is desperately needed for our national defense, is not fully funded. in the moments before the senate began a vote series, including a final vote on the government funding bill, senator bob corker rose to ask majority leader, mitch mcconnell, why the senate often ends up doing these late-night votes. >> the house sent the bill over today a little over after 1:00. and it is 11:56. and i know that every senator here has the right to object, and i assume some people have objected to voting. i would just -- the -- we're not going to close. i had called down earlier and

asked the secretary if we're not going to vote by 10:00, if we could just vote at 8:00 in the morning. i mean, this is ridiculous. it's juvenile. this is a juvenile process that we go through every time we do one of these. i would respectfully ask our leader, who has been dealing with a lot today, and i'm glad that he has the job that he has and i don't. and the secretary has the job that she has and i don't. but could you explain to us what has occurred over the last -- 11 hours that keeps us here voting on a bill that we all know is going to pass, regardless of how we vote on it. that has kept us from just going ahead and voting. could you explain to the body just very quickly what is happening? could we in the future possibly try to resolve these things at a decent hour or come back the next morning and vote? >> i would say to my good friend from tennessee -- by the way, i'm very sorry he's decided to

leave the senate. given how much he's obviously enjoyed it today. [ laughter ] >> between the changes that have occurred in the white house in the last several hours and this, it has been an unusual day. i will say. yes, sir. >> well, my good friend from tennessee knows my principle responsibility is begging, pleading and cajoling. and i've been in continuous discussions, shall i say, with several of our members who were legitimately unhappy about one aspect or another. and spent a lot of time thinking over whether or not they wanted to expedite the process. and i must say, after a long and intense day of such discussions with several of our members who had legitimate concerns, i'm relieved rather than depressed that we might be able to actually finish tonight.

>> yeah. well, if i could, reserving the right to object, i would like for us to have some degree of discussion about this, and in the future, either finish our business at a normal time or come back the next morning. but this is a ridiculous process that we go through, where people extort us until we get so tired that we're willing to do whatever it is that they wish for us to do. and i don't know what the issues were today. for instance, i would love to have a week debate on an amuf at some point. okay? now, i could hold this vote up on a legitimate issue and say, no, we're not going to vote until you agree that we're going to have an aumf debate. i have not done that. to my knowledge, i have never in my life held a vote up. maybe i did ten years ago and i can't remember. but i just think that, again, we ought to have a little more

certainty around here. i appreciate that people have flights in the morning and there's some co dells going out, and so i'm not going to object. however, i'm going to discuss with other members whether in the future if we cannot finish our business at a reasonable hour, let's just come back the next morning and start. with that, i do not object. >> and looking ahead to some of our live coverage on our companion network, c-span, this afternoon at 2:00 eastern, a briefing for congressional staff on improving school safety, and ways to prevent gun violence. we'll hear remarks from a student of marjory stoneman douglas high school in parkland, florida, and from members of the national prevention science coalition. again, that's at 2:00 p.m. eastern. later, connecticut senator, richard blumenthal, will join gun violence prevention advocates for conversation, live at 6:00 p.m. eastern. and, of course, tomorrow the march for our lives rally against gun violence takes place in washington, d.c. you can see that live tomorrow beginning at noon eastern.

all of this live on c-span. monday on landmark cases. join us for gideon v. wainwright, as we explore the story of clarence earl gideon, a petty chief who spent his time in jail studying the law. he challenged the state of florida who denied him access to an attorney. >> the next case is the state of florida versus clarence earl guidian. what says the state, are you ready for trial? >> the state is ready, your honor. >> what says the defendant? are you ready? >> why aren't you ready? >> i have no counsel. >> gideon v. wainwright is a supreme court case that went on to establish counsel for alleged criminals. examine this case and the high court's ruling with paul clement, the 43rd solicitor general, a partner at the kirkland and ellis law firm.

and akeel reed amar, professor of law and political science at yale and visiting law professor at the university of pennsylvania law school. watch "landmark cases" live, monday, at 9:00 eastern on c-span, c-span.org or listen with the free c-span radio app. and our website, c-span.org/landmark cases, has resources for background on each case, including the landmark cases companion book, a link to the national constitution center's interactive constitution, and you can download the 30-minute landmark cases podcast at c-span.org or from your podcast subscriber. joseph mcmanis, president trump's nominee to serve as u.s. ambassador to columbia, testified before the senate foreign relations committee earlier this month. he's a 32-year foreign service veteran and previously served as top aide to former secretary of state, hillary clinton. during that hearing, senator marco rubio pressed mcmanus about his