Somebody told me that there are laws about sending faxes to businesses
and/or individuals. What are they? What are the conditions and
limitations?

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Request for Question Clarification by justaskscott-ga on 03 Jan 2003 20:40 PST

In what country and state/province are you located?

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Clarification of Question by pendleton-ga on 03 Jan 2003 21:01 PST

Depends:

Zacatecas, Mexico

and

Fort Worth, Texas

Hello pendleton,

Thank you for your question.

I searched {fax laws} to find that there are both state and federal
laws regarding "junk faxes" :

Diagnosis: Fax-itis
http://www.badads.org/fax.shtml

"Did you ever wake up and check your fax to find a fax advertising the
Yummy Yum Yum-Shrink Your Bum diet had arrived during the night? If
so, you're suffering from unsolicited fax-itis. Symptoms include
staring at the fax in disbelief, quickly followed by a feeling of
anger that an advertiser would dare to use your paper, your precious
fax ink and your equipment to ask for your money...

...The cure comes in the form of the 1992 Telephone Consumer
Protection Act (TCPA), which banned all unsolicited commercial faxing
to private homes and businesses. In addition, many state laws also
prohibit the practice."

They also note particulars on the Federal Regulation:

"The Telephone Consumer Protection Act

The Telephone Consumer Protection Act of 1991 (47 USC § 227) and its
implementing FCC regulations (mainly 47 CFR § 64.1200) prohibits the
transmission of any material advertising the commercial availability
or quality of any product, service or property to any person without
that person's prior express permission or request."

Remove.org has a good summary page on these regulations:
http://www.remove.org/laws/federal/phone.html

Fax regulations seem to fall under the broader category of Spam Laws.

Here you can find the Tennessee Statutes, for one example:
http://www.spamlaws.com/state/tn.html

Or California:
http://www.spamlaws.com/state/ca1.html

CALIFORNIA BUSINESS AND PROFESSIONS CODE
SECTION 17538.4
As amended by Assembly Bill 1676 (1998)
(approved by Governor September 26, 1998) 

17538.4. (a) No person or entity conducting business in this state
shall facsimile (fax) or cause to be faxed, or electronically mail
(e-mail) or cause to be e-mailed, documents consisting of unsolicited
advertising material for the lease, sale, rental, gift offer, or other
disposition of any realty, goods, services, or extension of credit
unless:

    (1) In the case of a fax, that person or entity establishes a
toll-free telephone number that a recipient of the unsolicited faxed
documents may call to notify the sender not to fax the recipient any
further unsolicited documents...

Other states are listed here, but Texas does not appear on the list. 


JunkFax.org
http://www.junkfax.org/fax/reference/laws_and_cases.htm

Here is a page of information on TCPA related laws and cases
with quite a few interesting and informative links. You will find
links to all the Federal laws, their interpretation and case
histories.

A page on State Laws at this site links to the Texas statutes:
http://www.capitol.state.tx.us/statutes/bc/bc0003500.html#bc033.35.47

(see the complete text)

§ 35.47. Certain Electronic Communications Made for Purpose of Sales

...b) A person may not make or cause to be made a transmission for the
purpose of a solicitation or sale to a facsimile recording device or
other telecopier for which the person or entity receiving the
transmission will be charged for the transmission, unless the person
or entity receiving the transmission has given, prior to the
transmission, consent to make or cause to be made the transmission.

(c) A person may not make or cause to be made a transmission for the
purpose of a solicitation or sale to a facsimile recording device
after 11 p.m. and before 7 a.m.

(d) On complaint of a called person that Subsection (a), (b), or (c)
of this section has been violated, the county or district attorney of
the county in which the person resides shall investigate the complaint
and file charges if appropriate. A telephone company serving the
caller or called person is not responsible for investigating a
complaint or keeping records relating to this section.

(e) A person who violates Subsection (a), (b), or (c) of this section
commits an offense. An offense under this section is a Class C
misdemeanor...


I trust my research has helped inform you about unsolicited commercial
fax laws. If a link above should fail to work or my research require
further explanation, please do post a Request for Clarification.


Regards,

-=clouseau=-

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Request for Answer Clarification by pendleton-ga on 04 Jan 2003 04:23 PST

Hello, justaskscott-ga

Hey, you have done a great job so far. Just one more Q
what about Pennsylvania?

Thanks, 
John P:

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Clarification of Answer by clouseau-ga on 04 Jan 2003 09:26 PST

Hello again pendleton,

Actually, this is clouseau-ga, not justaskscott. I fielded your
question late last night.

In regards to Pennsylvania, Spam Laws at
http://www.spamlaws.com/state/summary.html#pa  shows only the
following:


Pennsylvania

A Pennsylvania law approved in June 2000 requires unsolicited
commercial e-mail messages containing "explicit sexual materials" to
contain a label ("ADV-ADULT") at the beginning of the subject line.

Searching further for [Pennsylvania fax OR spam law], I found the
following:

http://law.spamcon.org/us-laws/states/pa/lawindex.shtml

-Pennsylvania laws that directly address spam-

Which echoes the above on sexual materials.

It appears that the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) is most
applicable in Pennsylvania.

Best regards,

-=clouseau=-

Answer well done and to my liking. Got what I needed to know.

John p.