FTC Proposes Changes to Telemarketing Sales Rule

The Federal Trade Commission has published a notice of proposed rulemaking [87 FR 33677] seeking public comment on proposed amendments to the Telemarketing Sales Rule (TSR). The proposed amendments would require telemarketers and sellers to maintain additional records of their telemarketing transactions, prohibit material misrepresentations and false or misleading statements in business to business telemarketing transactions, and add a new definition for the term “previous donor.”

The FTC states that modified recordkeeping requirements are necessary to protect consumers from deceptive or abusive telemarketing practices and support the Commission's law enforcement mandate to enforce the TSR. The prohibition on material misrepresentations and false or misleading statements is necessary to protect businesses from deceptive telemarketing practices. The new definition of “previous donor” will clarify that a telemarketer may not use prerecorded messages to solicit charitable donations on behalf of a charitable organization unless the recipient of the call made a donation to that particular charitable organization within the prior two years.

The FTC also published an advance notice of proposed rulemaking [87 FR 33662] to seek public comment on whether the rule should continue to exempt telemarketing calls to businesses, whether the rule should require a notice and cancelation mechanism with negative option sales, and whether to extend the rule to apply to telemarketing calls that consumers initiate to a telemarketer (i.e., “inbound telemarketing calls”) regarding computer technical support services. Comments on both notices are due by Aug. 2, 2022.