Ajit Pai, the chairman of the FCC, estimates 2.4B robocalls are placed to Americans each month. That means some of you are getting roughly 6-10 annoying callers who are most likely trying to get you to hand over personal information or money. Calls are known as spoofing, where robocallers use fake caller ID numbers to get around the Do Not Call Registry.
Today the FCC voted on a proposal to give phone companies the ability to block spoof numbers altogether.
“There is no reason why any legitimate caller should be spoofing an unassigned or invalid phone number,” Pai wrote. “It’s just a way for scammers to evade the law.”
The new rules probably won’t be in place for a couple of months, but once in place should help cut back on the number of spoof calls.
The FCC partnered with Google, Apple, Microsoft, AT&T and Verizon to come up with this plan to help consumers prevent unwanted calls.