2025 FCC Compliance Guide for Joint Ventures: Preserving the Synergy

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It’s no secret marketers are sounding the alarm over the upcoming FCC update, especially those buying or selling leads and making robocalls. Come 27 January 2025, all leads will become exclusive: you will have to obtain individual consent from every customer you contact.

In practice, this means lead generators, brokers, and software companies will no longer be able to sell leads to multiple advertisers but will have to choose the businesses for which they want to request consent. Lead flipping might become borderline impossible or at least much harder.

So far, it’s crystal clear: obtain consent, and you’re good to go. 

However, it becomes significantly more difficult when it comes to joint ventures. For example, while “robotexts and robocalls must be logically and topically associated with the website where the consumer gave consent,” it’s unclear what degree of association is enough.

Here are some burning questions to answer:

• Will the FCC one-to-one consent be required for both partners in a joint partnership?
• Will the ATDS systems remain a thing or become obsolete?
• Will the TCPA consent requirements force the usage of custom language for every brand?

Read on to learn what the 2025 FCC update means for joint venture business and how to adjust.

  

Where Does the FCC Update Come from?

In the 1930s, when telemarketers bombarded customers with calls, the US government first tried to protect customers by passing an amendment to the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA), then known as the Communications Act. Since then, the consent requirement has gradually been toughened to reflect the emerging technologies and acquisition strategies.

However, lead generation has never evolved as rapidly as with the advent of AI technologies. Robo-texts and calls have inundated the business landscape so quickly that they have become almost unbearable for consumers.

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) reacted with an update to the TCPA requirements, obliging businesses to obtain one-to-one consent before contacting the customer. The rule applies to robotic texts and calls.

Here’s how the TCPA consent update changes the game:

	Before the TCPA Update	After the TCPA Update
Consent	One-to-many consent	One-to-One Consent
Do-not-call (DNC) list	Does not apply to text messages	Applies to text messages
Topical relevance	Related products can be promoted	Agreed-upon products can be promoted
Consent revocation	Limited to specific revocation methods	Consent can be revoked using any method: call, text, email, etc.
Consent record keeping	Not strictly enforced	Detailed consent records are required

How Will the FCC Update Affect Joint Ventures?

To understand the possible implications of the FCC update, it’s worth understanding its main objective: preventing customers from unsolicited marketing contacts and fostering relationships between customers and advertisers. These changes are expected to benefit customers who are concerned about businesses selling or stealing their private information or tracking their actions.

Here are some major FCC regulations pertaining to joint ventures:

#1 Prior Written Consent for Robotic Calls and Texts

“The TCPA and the Commission’s implementing rules require callers to obtain consumer consent for certain calls and texts sent using an automatic telephone dialing system (autodialer) or made using a prerecorded or artificial voice. If a robocall or robotext includes or introduces an advertisement or constitutes telemarketing, the prior express consent must be in writing.”

For joint ventures, this means two things:

• First, they must obtain prior written consent for any promotional robotic texts or calls for every customer (informational texts and calls may not require such consent)
• Second, the consent must be specific to every partner of the venture

Relying on your co-venturer is no longer an option; if they’ve done all the job for you previously, now it’s time to think how you are going to obtain consent on your own or how you want to be represented on your partner’s form to ensure TCPA compliance.

#2 The DNC Registry Also Applies to Marketing Text Messages

“First, we require terminating mobile wireless providers to block text messages from a particular number following notification from the Commission unless their investigation determines that the identified text messages are not illegal. Next, we codify that the National DNC Registry’s protections apply to text messages.”

The DNC Registry protections – ones allowing customers to block calls from unwanted numbers – now apply to text messages, which makes joint venture partners even more dependent on each other. If the marketing messages are blocked on one side, the other partner may not get these leads.

In practice, this means you should coordinate DNC compliance with your co-venturer or lead generator, making sure they do not generate leads who are in the DNC Registry.

#3 Email-to-Text Messages Will Likely Become Opt-in

“We propose to require, rather than simply encourage, providers to make email-to-text services opt in.”

Aside from phone calls and text messages, the FCC also recommends providers block unwanted email-to-text messages – emails converted into SMS and then delivered to the customer’s mobile phone. Naturally, this change limits the co-venturers’ email-to-text marketing potential.

#4 Cross-Selling Between Co-Venturers Might Become Harder, But Not Necessarily So

“We also require that the consent must be in response to a clear and conspicuous disclosure to the consumer and that the content of the ensuing robotexts and robocalls must be logically and topically associated with the website where the consumer gave consent. Clear and conspicuous means notice that would be apparent to a reasonable consumer.

We believe that texters and callers are capable of implementing this standard and, when in doubt, will err on the side of limiting that content to what consumers would clearly expect. As a result, we decline to adopt a definition of “logically and topically” at this time as some commenters suggest.”

While it’s pretty clear about disclaimers, the “logical and topical” part is a bit fuzzy:

• On the one hand, the TCPA requirement of close association might limit cross-selling. For example, if a customer consents to receive auto insurance offers on your website, this doesn’t extend to your partner selling home insurance.
• On the other hand, since the definition of “logical and topical” isn’t clearly defined, brands might still do broader marketing than simply offering completely related products. For example, home insurance services might or might not be claimed “logically and topically associated” with mortgage refinance services.

But then again, the room for maneuvering for joint venture companies won’t be large since the requirement for one-to-one consent remains intact, forcing both partners to receive explicit consent for their marketing calls and messages.

#5 Leads Will Become More Expensive and Harder to Get

It’s almost inevitable that the lead price will grow. Lead generators that rely heavily on Automatic Telephone Dialing Systems (ATDS) will have to choose for which advertisers they want to obtain consent and find a way to provide the request in a way that the lead agrees.

As I’ve mentioned in the beginning, the TCPA compliance update, in fact, eliminates lead sharing, or at least limits it to the extent that it would only be reasonable to share one lead with no more than several companies (otherwise, the consent form will be too unappealing to the customer).

How Phonexa’s Consent Branches Ensure Compliance When Buying and Selling Leads

Whether a joint venture company or an individual marketer, you can benefit greatly from Phonexa’s proprietary consent branch technology that collects individual consent for your advertiser using customer or generic consent language.

Custom Consent Language	When a user fills out a form, they get individual consent language for every offered advertiser. Custom consent language on your lead generation forms ensures ironclad TCPA compliance, enabling ATDS calls for the selected businesses.
Generic Consent Language	When a user fills out a form, they get generic consent language for all offered advertisers and can choose the brand they give consent to. Generic consent language is less granular, but it’s also TCPA compliant.

Here is how Consent Branches work in practice:

Step 1 – Affiliates Send Non-PII Pings to Phonexa

First, affiliates send non-PII pings – generic customer data without identifiable information: country, device type, etc. – to Phonexa. At this stage, personal data like the customer’s name, phone number, or address isn’t sent, so advertisers cannot identify them and contact them out of the system.

Step 2 – Individual Consent Requests are Sent to Customers

Once the non-PII pings are sent to Phonexa, the system finds matching advertisers and offers these advertisers to the customer (this may only be a single advertiser or many advertisers, depending on how many matches are found). On the customer’s end, they receive checkboxes and some general information about each advertiser: name, logo, and how the advertiser wants to contact them (via SMS, email, ATDS, etc.).

Step 3 – The Selected Companies Receive Full Customer Info

The brands given permission to contact the customer receive the previously hidden customer details, like their name, phone number, and email. Now, these brands can compete for this customer.

 

Learn more about Phonexa’s FCC-compatible Consent Branches.

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Frequently Asked Questions

What is a joint venture?

A joint venture is when two separate businesses put their heads and resources together to pursue a specific marketing goal, like developing a new product, expanding to a new market, or synergizing their core offerings. For example, BMW and Toyota entered a joint venture to develop the BMW Z4 and Toyota Supra; Sony Ericsson created innovative mobile phones, etc.

What are the FCC and TCPA?

The FCC is a U.S. government agency that regulates TV, radio, wire, and satellite communications nationwide, including by enforcing the TCPA, a federal law that protects customers by imposing limitations on telemarketing or robotic calls and texts.

Will the new FCC rules apply to old leads?

The new FCC rules will apply to old leads if they are contacted after January 27, 2025.