HB 916 — Strengthen Do Not Call/Do Not Text Registry (First Edition)
Status: Passed 1st Reading (House) — Referred to Rules, Calendar, and Operations of the House
Introduced: Nov 12, 2024 (various procedural entries in 2025)
Primary Sponsors: Representatives Harrison, Blust, Morey (and Representative Harrison listed as sponsor on several entries)
Summary — Purpose and intent
- The bill updates and tightens North Carolina’s telemarketing/Do Not Call provisions to better cover modern communications (including text messages), broaden who counts as a “telephone solicitor,” shorten the time in which callers must stop contacting a consumer, and increase accountability for parties who receive leads generated by unlawful automated calls.
Key provisions and changes
- Expanded definition of “telephone solicitation”:
- Now explicitly includes voice or text communications (live or prerecorded), sent over telephone lines, wireless networks or commercial mobile radio services, and facsimiles, when used to solicit purchases, donations, leads, or participation in contests/sweepstakes.
- Incorporates the federal Telemarketing Sales Rule definition of “telemarketing.”
- Broader definition of “telephone solicitor”:
- Includes any individual or entity doing business in the State that makes or causes telephone solicitations (directly or through agents, contractors, third parties).
- Also covers parties that receive sales leads or inbound calls and know (or have reason to know) those leads were generated by a telephone call.
- Affiliate/established-business-relationship calls:
- If a solicitor uses an affiliate’s established business relationship to contact a residential number listed on the Do Not Call registry and the called person asks not to be called again, the solicitor must remove that number from its and the affiliate’s contact lists and stop calling within 30 business days (reduced from 60).
- Automatic dialing/robocall restrictions and liability:
- Reaffirms prohibitions on use of automatic dialing and recorded message players for unsolicited calls (subject to exceptions).
- Creates joint liability for any party that knows or has reason to know it is receiving/accepting sales leads or inbound calls that were generated by calls placed in violation of automatic-dialer prohibitions.
- Effective date: The act takes effect when it becomes law (Section 4).
Who is affected
- Consumers/residential telephone subscribers: stronger protection from unwanted calls and texts and faster remediation when they ask to stop.
- Telephone solicitors, telemarketers, affiliates, third-party vendors, lead generators and any entity that receives telemarketing leads: expanded obligations, faster removal timelines, and potential joint liability for unlawful lead generation.
- Businesses using automated dialing/robocall technology: additional enforcement risk if their actions generate leads that downstream parties accept.
Procedural / Timeline notes
- The bill text is the House First Edition; it passed first reading and was referred to Rules/Calendar. The act is effective upon becoming law. Further committee action and floor votes will determine final enactment.
Implications
- Strengthens consumer protections by explicitly covering texts and by shortening the period to stop calling following a do-not-call request.
- Places greater compliance burden on telemarketers, affiliates and buyers of leads, and increases exposure to joint liability for accepting leads known to be generated unlawfully.
