On September 2, 2026, the FCC’s Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau (Bureau) issued a Public Notice (Notice) seeking comment on the FCC establishing and publishing a Robocall Mitigation Scorecard (Scorecard). The Notice states that the Scorecard will empower consumers and encourage providers to continue to combat illegal robocalls by providing the public with an assessment of the effectiveness of voice service providers’ efforts to protect consumers from illegal robocalls and will provide consumers a valuable tool when choosing a provider. The Notice emphasizes that this is not a rulemaking proceeding that will result in new rules or requirements for voice service providers. Instead, the FCC will publish the Scorecard in order to provide consumers with additional information about current provider practices.
The FCC’s goal is to give consumers a simple, easy-to-understand guide on how well providers protect consumers from illegal robocalls through a Scorecard that evaluates both provider efforts and actual results. This will require the development of a composite set of metrics that reflects both operational practices and measurable outcomes, including how often legitimate calls are blocked. This composite approach lets the Scorecard work for providers and consumers and will be simple enough for consumers to use and detailed enough for providers to identify areas for improvement. Importantly, the Notice states that the Scorecard will not be an indication of whether providers have or have not complied with the FCC’s robocall rules as that is a case-by-case inquiry and acknowledges that a consumer’s provider does not control every stage of a call’s life cycle. Still, the Commission believes that the Scorecard can be a useful tool for consumers who want to reduce the number of illegal robocalls they receive. The Commission believes the Scorecard must be easy to understand and accessible to consumers and the rating criteria must be relevant, accurate, and derived from sources whose reliability are clearly disclosed. Finally, there must be an iterative process to improve the Scorecard.
The Notice seeks comment on which providers should receive a Scorecard rating. The FCC proposes rating only domestic voice service providers with retail customers, and not those that operate solely as wholesale or intermediate providers. The proposal is to include all types of retail providers including wireless, wireline, VoIP, and those operating hybrid networks, but the Commission believes it is unnecessary to rate all such providers. Instead, the Notice proposes to include those providers that collectively serve the vast majority of the retail market and seeks comment on this approach and what threshold of the market should be considered. In addition, input is sought as to whether only the largest providers should be included based on the number of subscribers served and whether small or regional providers should be excluded or treated differently.
The Notice also seeks comment on the sources of data to be used to compile the Scorecard and proposes the following: Robocall Mitigation Database (RMD) filings, provider-offered tools or services, provider blocking practices, FCC Consumer Complaints Center data, FCC enforcement action data, third-party or industry sources, Industry Traceback Group data, and Federal Trade Commission complaint data. Regarding RMD filings, the Notice asks how can the Bureau extract standardized, comparable information from filings that currently vary in format and content across providers and are there specific elements of existing RMD filings that would lend themselves to consistent scoring without requiring a new data collection?
The Bureau also seeks comment on what types of metrics should be used for the Scorecard. Two general categories of metrics are discussed: conduct-based metrics and outcome-based metrics. Examples of conduct-based metrics include: (a) provider offered consumer tools to label or block calls; (b) provider network efforts to label or block calls; (c) provider responses to traceback requests; and (d) provider attestation of SIP calls (unless the provider is currently exempt). A variation on such metrics would be evidence that a provider has failed to make efforts required by Rule or could indicate the failure to make certain blocking efforts or making an inaccurate filing in the RMD. Examples of outcome-based metrics include: (a) consumer complaints filed with the FCC, the Federal Trade Commission, or other governmental bodies; (b) aggregated data, for example, on the number or percentage of calls blocked, together with the false positive rate (the rate at which legitimate calls are blocked) as a separate measure of blocking accuracy; aggregate data, similarly compiled, on the number or percentage of illegal robocalls consumers receive; and (d) trend data showing whether the volume or rate of illegal robocalls reaching a provider’s subscribers has changed over time, drawn from third-party analytics sources where available. The Notice seeks comment on whether these metrics are the best indicators of how well a provider is protecting its customers and also whether there other metrics that should be considered.
The Notice also seeks comment on how the Scorecard metrics should be displayed to consumers, including whether the metrics should be presented individually or combined into a single composite score. In addition, comment is sought as to the accessibility of the Scorecard on the FCC’s website in particular for individuals with disabilities. Comment is also sought as to the availability of the Scorecard in languages other than English, consistent with the Commission’s existing requirement that broadband labels appear in languages in which a provider markets its services.
Comments in this proceeding are due by September 22,2026 and Reply Comments are due by October 2, 2026.
