* FCC hasn't followed through on violations of junk fax laws
Geeks like acronyms. Various sources (e.g., Computer Desktop Encyclopedia, The Jargon File, and the Geek Dictionary) define lots of three-letter acronyms (TLA) and other abbreviations used by geeks. In that spirit, I can write that Yet Another Junk Fax (YAJF) appeared on my machine a few days ago, this time touting Yet Another Junk Stock (YAJS) and presumably aimed at Yet Another Gullible Fool (YAGF) stupid enough to spend money on information sent illegally by criminals.
In the United States, sending a fax to someone without an established business relationship (EBR) is a violation of the Telephone Consumer Protection Act of 1991 (TCPA) and of the Junk Fax Prevention Act of 1995 (JFPA). For complete information about FCC regulations applying to junk faxes, see the agency’s summary.
On occasion, I have taken the time to report junk faxes to the FCC, but I had never seen any information about whether such complaints are acted upon. A recent report from the Government Accountability Office (GAO) gives depressing news about the FCC’s enforcement of junk fax laws.
The summary from the GAO includes the following:
“FCC has procedures for receiving and acknowledging the rapidly increasing number of junk fax complaints, but the numbers of investigations and enforcement actions have generally remained the same. In 2000, FCC recorded about 2,200 junk fax complaints; in 2005, it recorded over 46,000. Using its procedures to review the complaints, FCC’s Enforcement Bureau (EB) issued 261 citations (i.e., warnings) from 2000 through 2005. EB has ordered six companies to pay forfeitures for continuing to violate the junk fax rules after receiving a citation. The six forfeitures totaled over $6.9 million, none of which has been collected by the Department of Justice for various reasons. EB officials cited competing demands, resource constraints, and the rising sophistication of junk faxers in hiding their identities as hindrances to enforcement.”
There is no information in the report itself to indicate what proportion of the recipients of junk fax take the time to send complaints to the FCC. A February 2006 press release from j2 Global Communications about its successful litigation against a major fax-spammer, Venali/Vision Lab Telecommunications, says that organization has been sending out millions of junk faxes to j2’s customers. http://tinyurl.com/s3bwk I suspect that the FCC’s 46,000 complaints represent the very small tip of a very large iceberg.
Even if we estimate that junk faxes cost individual recipients a modest 5 cents apiece, the total cost of wasted paper and toner or ink presumably runs into the millions of dollars a year. In addition, these criminals are bilking their customers of presumably significant amounts of money by pretending to send faxes to willing recipients (see, for example, the report on the now defunct Fax.com company). Worse, according to the FCC document mentioned earlier, “The person or business on whose behalf a fax is sent or whose goods or services are advertised is liable for a violation of these rules even if they did not physically send the fax themselves.”
If the FCC increased its litigation against the criminals it can find and actually collected money from the court-imposed fines, perhaps it could use the increased revenues to fund increased enforcement efforts.
Wouldn’t it be nice to see at least some junk fax operators reduced to penury and ignominy?
Grrrr.
