PHOENIX — Arizona lawmakers are advancing legislation that would allow residents to opt out of getting junk text messages.
House Bill 2498 would revise the rules governing Arizona's Do-Not-Call registry by allowing the list to apply to text messages in addition to phone calls.
Current law states that anyone who registers on the Do-Not-Call list cannot be contacted over the phone by solicitors or sellers.
HB 2498 expands the list's scope by prohibiting the sending of text messages to numbers registered on the Do-No-Call list. Someone who violates this provision can be cited with a $1,000 civil penalty.
The Arizona House Committee on Commerce voted Tuesday to advance HB 2498 through the Legislature.
The bill must still be approved by the Arizona Senate and Gov. Katie Hobbs before it can become law.
The Arizona Attorney General's Office encourages residents to register their phone numbers on the Do-Not-Call list so that the agency can investigate instances of illegal telemarketing.
While phone calls and text messages that solicit products have strict regulations, messages related to political campaigns can have varying guidelines.
According to the AG's office, political text messages can be sent without a person's prior consent "if the sender does not use auto-dialing technology to send the text."
Arizona residents have become accustomed to being bombarded with political texts. According to the anti-spam company Robokiller, Arizonans received 50 million campaign texts during the last couple of months of the 2022 general election.
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