FTC throws down robocall gauntlet: $50,000 for best way to stop annoying calls

FTC already has the law on its side but wants new tech ideas to back it up

It's not clear if the Federal Trade Commission is throwing up its hands at the problem or just wants some new ideas about how to combat it, but the agency is now offering $50,000 to anyone who can create what it calls an innovative way to block that will block illegal commercial robocalls on landlines and mobile phones.

Officially the program is called the FTC Robocall Challenge, and it will be judged by Steve Bellovin, FTC Chief Technologist; Henning Schulzrinne, Federal Communications Commission Chief Technologist; and Kara Swisher of All Things Digital. A complete list of rules and frequently asked questions are available on Challenge.gov.

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The FTC Robocall Challenge is free and open to the public. Entries will be accepted beginning on October 25, 2012, at 5:00pm ET, until January 17, 2013, at 5:00 pm ET. The winner or winners will be revealed next April.

The FTC said the prize will be awarded to an individual, team, or small corporation (10 employees or less) if a solution is developed based on the following criteria:

• Does it work? (50%): How successful is the proposed solution likely to be in blocking illegal robocalls? Will it block wanted calls? An ideal solution blocks all illegal robocalls and no calls that are legally permitted. (For example, automated calls by political parties, charities, and health care providers, as well as reverse 911 calls, are not illegal robocalls.)
• How many consumer phones can be protected? What types of phones? Mobile phones? Traditional wired lines? VoIP land lines? Proposals that will work for all phones will be more heavily weighted.
• Is it easy to use? (25%): How difficult would it be for a consumer to learn to use your solution? How efficient would it be to use your solution, from a consumer's perspective?
• Are there mistakes consumers might make in using your solution, and how severe would they be?
• Can it be rolled out? (25%): What has to be changed for your idea to work? Can it function in today's marketplace? (Does it require changes to all phone switches world-wide, and require active cooperation by all of the world's phone companies and VoIP gateways, or can it work with limited adoption?) Solutions that are deployable at once will be more heavily weighted, as will solutions that give immediate benefits with even small-scale deployment

Additionally, organizations that employ more than 10 people may compete for the FTC's Technology Achievement Award, which does not include a cash prize.

As part of the challenge, the FTC announced it will provide participants with data on de-identified consumer complaints about robocalls made between June 2008 and September 2012.  Challenge participants interested in this data will receive periodic updates with contemporary data through December 31, 2012. The complaint data will include: date of call; approximate time of call; reported caller name; first seven digits of reported caller phone number; and consumer area code.

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The FTC has also been working with industry insiders and other experts to identify potential solutions. However, current technology still lets shady telemarketers to cheaply autodial thousands of phone calls every minute and display false or misleading caller ID information, the FTC said.

On October 25 the FTC said it will host two live social media chats for 60 minutes each to answer questions about the challenge. Chat participants can follow the @FTC Twitter handle and are encouraged to ask questions beginning at 1:00 pm ET on Twitter using the hashtag #FTCrobo. Immediately after the chat, at 2:00pm ET, staff will answer questions on the agency's Facebook page.

While there are legal measures in place to stop most robocalls, the use of the annoying automated calling process seems to be on the rise. The Challenge was announced at a hearing this week on what could be done to further tighten the rules. 

The FTC defined the rules that outlawed most robocalls in 2009 has taken notice of the increase of late --  2 million public complaints of violations in the past year alone.

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