On April 7, 2025, with just four days to spare, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) delayed the effective date of part of its impending rule regarding how companies respond to opt-out requests from individuals to a company’s calls or text messages. The FCC postponed the effective date for one year to allow businesses to implement modifications to communications systems in compliance with the new requirement requiring cross-channel and entity opt-outs. Notably, the postponement does not apply to all aspects of the impending Revocation Rules, which otherwise are effective as of April 11, 2025.
Background
As previously discussed in an Eversheds Sutherland Legal Alert, the FCC issued Revocation Rules regarding how consumers can revoke their consent under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA). The Revocation Rules are established by the FCC’s Report and Order of February 15, 2024 (February 2024 Order), which confirmed that consumers may revoke prior consent in any reasonable manner provided that the consumer “clearly expresses a desire not to receive further calls or text messages.”
Under the Revocation Rules, when a consumer revokes consent for texts or calls, the revocation applies to both future texts and calls across an entire entity, unless an exemption applies. The February 2024 Order gave the specific example of banks that send texts for multiple informational categories such as “fraud alerts, payment notices, and declined card transactions.” A single revocation of consent without clarification from the customer would be presumed to apply to all such categories of texts and calls.
Limited Waiver
Several associations of banks and financial institutions filed a request on March 12, 2025, asking that the FCC waive the Revocation Rules established by the February 2024 Order for a period of one year. The associations argued that there is good cause to waive the effective date of the Revocation Rules because financial institutions in particular face numerous challenges in modifying existing communications to process a revocation sent in response to one business unit’s call or text so that all business units cease placing calls or texts to the consumer. The FCC agreed with the associations on this limited point, but delayed implementation of the Revocation Rules only “to the extent that it requires callers to apply a request to revoke consent made in response to one type of message to all future robocalls and robotexts from that caller on unrelated matter.”
The Order does not otherwise delay the effective date of the other Revocation Rules adopted in the February 2024 Order.
What this Means for Businesses
While businesses now have some breathing room to create a system to coordinate revocation across various business units and channels of communication, they must still be ready for the other requirements of the Revocation Rules. Therefore, on April 11, 2025, companies should still be prepared to: (1) effectuate revocation of consent “by any reasonable means;” (2) process opt-out requests within 10 business days; and (3) send only a single follow-up text message to clarify the scope of revocation.
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