MERIDIAN TOWNSHIP - Robots have met their match.

On October 16th, the Federal Communications Commission issued a new regulation protecting residents from marketing robo-calls. Companies must now receive written consent from consumers in order to auto-dial their wireless phones. Written consent can be completed electronically, but if businesses violate this regulation, they can be faced with fines more than $1,000 per call.
The Michigan Association of Broadcasters issued a press release regarding the regulation and highlighted on non-marketing automatic messaging.

"For purely informational texts, such as news, weather and traffic alerts, the stations need only have previously received express consent to send the type of text message involved. Written consent is still not required if there is no marketing component to the call."

This poses a possible issue for political campaigns who rely on reaching out to citizens through robo-calls. It will also affect telemarketing companies who rely on an automatic dialing system.