Senate Moves Forward To Allow Junk Faxes

from the a-big-step-backwards dept

Last month we wrote about a controversial law that would roll back many of the rules against junk faxes. It was a response to an FCC ruling that probably went too far, that would have required written permission to receive a fax from a business. The problem was that this meant no one could ever call a business and ask for something to be faxed to them. So, Congress came up with a bill that overruled that and said businesses could fax with verbal permission too. The problem, of course, is that junk fax companies have already been known to alter call logs or lie about "permission" and this could make it easier to get away with that. A compromise bill would have limited the time frame to 48 hours in which a company would be allowed to fax someone after a verbal request, but the bill was passed via committee with the time limit being seven years. The version that went through basically says any company you have had contact with over the past seven years is now allowed to fax you. Of course, part of the reason the bill moved forward without any discussion or amendments is because of some sort of childish procedural issues by some Senators who cared more about making each other look bad than about actually figuring out what's best for the country.