Eradicating unwanted robocalls is one of those policy goals with almost universal appeal to American consumers. No one wants to pick up the phone to be greeted with a disembodied, robotic voice offering dubious loans, or warning of phony toll fees — and have it happen again, and again.
The Senate Commerce Committee took a step last week toward trying to stem the deluge, advancing the Foreign Robocall Elimination Act, which would establish an interagency task force to explore ways to stymie scam calls originating abroad.
It’s a welcome idea, but joins a years-long roster of policies designed to tackle the problem, such as requirements for caller ID authentication and autodialer restrictions. For all their popularity, these have had mixed success at best. In 2018, the number of robocalls jumped from around 30 billion to 50 billion, and has stayed in that range ever since.
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