Junk fax
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Junk faxes are unsolicited advertising via fax transmission. Junk faxes are the faxed equivalent of spam or junk mail.
Unsolicited advertising or sales via the telephone, known as cold calling, has been a common practice for decades. When fax technology became common, it must have seemed a logical next step to some to start sending "cold faxes" to publicly available fax numbers (companies and sometimes individuals generally indicate their fax number on business stationery and other materials).
Most businesses with fax machines regularly receive junk faxes. While the variety of services being touted is theoretically limitless, penny stocks (so-called "pump and dump" operations) and travel "deals" are among the most common.
Adding to the inconvenience faced by both fax machine owners and non-owners alike is the practice employed by some junk fax operators of calling random telephone numbers in the hopes of discovering new fax machines, which would then be added to their database. The practice resulted in large numbers of calls to voice telephones in which a person would answer their phone only to hear fax transmission tones.
However, early fax was a fairly slow medium, requiring a tie-up of a phone line for up to 2 minutes. Furthermore, faxes require the consumption of fax paper, a commodity paid for by the recipient (and early fax technology required specialized paper). Unlike cold calls, which can be quickly terminated, fax advertising does not announce itself; and early termination, when possible, still wastes resources.
[edit] National regulations
[edit] United States
The Telephone Consumer Protection Act of 1991 (47 USC 227), or TCPA, among other things specifically outlawed junk faxing:
- the use of any telephone facsimile machine, computer, or other device to send an unsolicited advertisement to a telephone facsimile machine (paragraph (b)(1)(C))
The law provides for a minimum $500 private right of action for a fax transmission deemed illegal under the Act. However, junk faxes generally break other rules mandated by the TCPA, such as requiring a fax transmitter to identify the source phone number and transmitting organization or individual on each page. Such additional infractions amplify the damages awarded. Furthermore, many states also have their own junk fax laws, which can increase total claims for a single junk fax even further.
The TCPA, in particular the junk fax provision, has been challenged on First Amendment grounds, but the law has withstood legal challenges.
In 2005, the United States Congress passed the Junk Fax Prevention Act of 2005 which amended the TCPA. The text of the law allows unsolicited advertisements if :
- the unsolicited advertisement is from a sender with an established business relationship with the recipient(paragraph (b)(1)(C)(i))
similar to the exemptions left to telephone solicitations by the TCPA.
In April 2006, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) implemented changes to the facsimilie (fax) advertising rules of the Telephone Consumer Protection Act of 1991 (TCPA). The new rules: (1) codify an established business relationship (EBR) exemption to the prohibition on sending unsolicited fax advertisements; (2) define EBR as used in the context of unsolicited fax advertisements; (3) require the sender of fax advertisements to provide specified notice and contact information on the fax that allows recipients to “opt-out” of any future transmissions from the sender; and (4) specify the circumstances under which a request to “opt-out” complies with the Act. The new rules took effect in August 2006.
In recent months a cottage industry of attorneys have encouraged fax recipients to send unwanted faxes to them and assign their rights of collection. Recently a Colorado Appeals Court has ruled against this practice [1], taking away the financial incentive for assignment of these type of cases.
[edit] Canada
Unsolicited faxes are regulated by the CRTC and must follow certain guidelines, but there is no individual right to sue the senders. Information on the rules of telemarketing faxes in Canada can be found in the Order CRTC 2001-193. Optionaly, individuals may enroll in Canadian Marketing Association's do-not-call list which covers mail, voice and fax, lasting 3 years. The list, however, is followed voluntarily by businesses and is not enforceable by law.
