California Attorney General Rob Bonta announced Phase 2 of Operation Robocall Roundup, a multistate investigation targeting four major voice service providers—Inteliquent, Bandwidth, Peerless, and Lumen—for routing suspected illegal robocalls. The Anti-Robocall Multistate Litigation Task Force sent warning letters demanding they stop transmitting such calls, following Phase 1 which already led to some providers being removed from the FCC's database. The AG emphasized that these companies have a heightened responsibility to block call traffic from known bad actors.
The providers were directed to immediately stop transmitting suspected illegal robocalls across their networks.
In-house legal teams should review all vendor and customer agreements with voice service providers or telecommunications carriers, focusing on clauses related to compliance with telemarketing laws (e.g., TCPA), call routing restrictions, audit rights, and termination for non-compliance. Specific attention should be paid to requirements for blocking or filtering suspected illegal robocalls, cooperation with traceback investigations, and reporting obligations. Agreements may need amendments to mandate proactive monitoring, immediate cessation of transmitting flagged call traffic, and indemnification for violations arising from the provider's network.
Entity
Inteliquent, Bandwidth, Peerless, Lumen
Industry
TelecommunicationsOfficial Press Release
https://oag.ca.gov/news/press-releases/it-bird-or-plane-it%E2%80%99s-robocall-task-force
https://ncdoj.gov/protecting-consumers/telephones-telemarketing/fighting-robocalls/warning-notices/
robocall task force strikes again attorney general bonta lau
https://oag.ca.gov/news/press-releases/robocall-task-force-strikes-again-attorney-general-bonta-launches-operation
California Attorney General Enforcement Page
https://oag.ca.gov/privacy/privacy-enforcement-actions
"Inteliquent"
"Bandwidth"
"Peerless"
"Lumen"
"suspected illegal robocalls"
"warning letters"
California Attorney General Rob Bonta, joined by attorneys general from seven other states, filed a lawsuit to block the $6.2 billion merger between Nexstar Media Group and Tegna Inc. The lawsuit alleges the merger violates Section 7 of the Clayton Act by reducing competition in local TV markets, leading to higher prices, less local news, and job losses.
California Attorney General Rob Bonta filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Education to block the expansion of IPEDS data collection requiring colleges to submit race-linked student data. The lawsuit argues the demand is arbitrary, capricious, and burdensome, and could enable costly partisan investigations. A multistate coalition co-led the challenge.
California Attorney General Rob Bonta and a coalition of state attorneys general announced they will continue their antitrust lawsuit against Live Nation/Ticketmaster after the U.S. Department of Justice settled the case. The states aim to hold Live Nation accountable for anticompetitive conduct that harms consumers, artists, and venues in the live music industry.
$376K
The California Privacy Protection Agency (CalPrivacy) settled with Ford Motor Company requiring the company to pay a $375,703 fine and change its practices. Ford violated the CCPA by requiring consumers to complete an email verification step before they could opt-out of the sale and sharing of their personal information collected through digital properties and connected vehicle services. In addition to the fine, Ford must provide easy methods to submit opt-out requests with minimal steps, audit its tracking technologies, and ensure compliance with opt-out preference signals including Global Privacy Control.
California Attorney General Rob Bonta, co-leading a bipartisan coalition of 21 attorneys general and charitable regulators, sent a letter to GoFundMe demanding the platform remove all plagiarized donation web pages for over 1.4 million charities, disclose information about donations, and ensure pages do not outrank official charity sites in search results. The action follows reports that GoFundMe used charities' information without consent and engaged in deceptive solicitations, violating state charitable solicitation and consumer protection laws.
California Attorney General Rob Bonta sent a letter to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services opposing a proposed rule that would eliminate model card requirements for AI tools in healthcare, warning that such rollbacks could lead to biased and unsafe healthcare decisions by reducing transparency.