Arizona AG, phone companies agree on principles to stop robocalls

PHOENIX — The Arizona Attorney General’s Office is cracking down on those pesky, illegal robocalls.

Attorney General Mark Brnovich announced Thursday in a press release that several phone companies are adopting eight principles to fight robocalls.

The action comes following a coalition of 51 attorneys general and 12 phone companies whose aim was to make it easier to investigate and track down those who initiate the calls.

“These principles are being adopted to help us stop illegal robocalls from reaching our phones,” Brnovich said in the release. “I applaud industry for working with attorneys general and for making available free call-blocking tools and committing to share information with my office so we can continue to bring bad actors to justice.”

Brnovich said the principles are expected to help in two main ways — prevention and enforcement.

To help with preventing robocalls, the phone companies are implementing call-blocking technology at the network level at no cost to customers. Additionally, they are making free call-blocking tools available to customers.

As part of the agreement, phone companies will also notify law enforcement officials and attorneys general about suspicious callers.

Most major phone companies are involved in the coalition, including AT&T, Century Link, Sprint, T-Mobile and Verizon.

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