Maintaining Compliance With U.S. Marketing Regulations

We understand that privacy regulations are increasingly important, particularly if you are reaching out to individuals from your website, a purchased list, etc. This guide is designed to help you make sure you’re not violating anything!

Please note, GDPR compliance is not considered in this guide as that regulation specifically applies to EU privacy law.

Here are the big things you need to do to be compliant with all relevant regulations:
1. Provide an easy way for people to opt-out.

2. Make sure people know who is contacting them, why, and how they can contact the message sender/caller.

3. Have an up to date privacy policy on your website that discloses how you use data. (Need a template, here’s one you can use!)

Table of Contents:

Maintaining Compliance With U.S. Regulations

Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA)

California Consumer Protection Act (CCPA)

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Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA)

View the official law summary here.

Who this impacts:
Anyone doing marketing through automated calls, cold calls, faxes, or text messages in the United States. Non-profits have exceptions to these rules.

Who you can reach out to:
1. Anyone who has given you explicit permission to contact them.
2. Anyone whose information can be found in a public directory or website.
3. Anyone who is not on the do not call registry, provided you follow the guidelines below.

Best practices:
Compliance with TCPA is easiest if you do not use automated dialers. For manual calls, provided the individual is not on the Do Not Call registry, you should maintain compliance. Do not call before 8 AM or after 9 PM, and identify yourself and how you can be reached.

Key components of this law:
Telephone service providers can offer robocall blocking to consumers.

Telemarketers may not use automated dialing to call wireless phones and leave pre-recorded telemarketing messages without consent.

Consumers may revoke consent to receive calls or SMS messages in any ‘reasonable’ way, at any time.

Callers must cease calling any reassigned phone numbers (wired and wireless).

Consent ‘survives’ when a person ports their landline phone number to a wireless number.

Some ‘urgent circumstances’ still allow a company to call or send SMSes to wireless phones without prior consent, such as alerts about potential fraud or reminders of urgent medication refills. However, the company instigating such communications must offer consumers an ‘opt-out’ option.

Important guidelines to follow:
1. For Pre-Recorded Messages: Clearly identify the business, individual, or other entity initiating the call at the beginning of your message and a contact number or address at some point within the message (ex: Hi, this is Larissa LaMaster from Boundless Media, you can reach me at 123-456-7890”). Provide an automated opt-out for any auto-dial calls.

2. Don’t call or text anyone on the national Do Not Call registry for promotional purposes unless you have obtained explicit consent from them. (Our website pixel identifies visitors on this registry, so you don’t have to worry about these.)

Exceptions: If they have an established business relationship with your company or if you got their phone number from a public directory or website.

3. Provide clear notice that a call or text message is a promotion, and provide a phone number that people can unsubscribe from as well as a cost-free way to be taken off the solicitation list. A web form would work just fine for this! Make sure to take these individuals off of any call or text marketing list.

Exceptions: Tax-exempt organizations are not required to provide a notice of promotion.

4. Do not call any consumer before 8 AM or after 9 PM.

Note, the fine for violating this law is $500 per violation and up to $1500 per violation for knowingly & willfully violating. This is enforced by the FTC and FCC pretty loosely, but a lot of complaints will trigger a larger investigation into the nature of the promotional messaging.

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California Consumer Protection Act (CCPA)

View the official law summary here.

Who this impacts:
The CCPA applies to for-profit businesses that do business in California and meet any of the following:

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• Have a gross annual revenue of over $25 million;
• Buy, receive, or sell the personal information of 50,000 or more California residents, households, or devices; or
• Derive 50% or more of their annual revenue from selling California residents’ personal information.

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Key components of this law:

California residents may ask businesses to disclose what personal information they have about them and what they do with that information, to delete their personal information and not to sell their personal information. They also have the right to be notified, before or at the point businesses collect your personal information, of the types of personal information they are collecting and what they may do with that information. Businesses cannot make CA Residents waive these rights, and any contract provision that says they waive these rights is unenforceable.