In 2021, the Florida Legislature took drastic action in amending the Florida Telephone Solicitation Act (FTSA) to make the statute more consumer-friendly after the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark decision in Facebook v. Duguid, 209 L. Ed. 2d 272, 141 S. Ct. 1163, 1167 (2021), narrowly limited the definition of “automatic telephone dialing system” (ATDS) under the federal Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA). You can read more about the Facebook decision here and the FTSA’s enactment here.

Now, the Florida Legislature has course-corrected and introduced new amendments to the FTSA, which include a narrower definition of the term “autodialer” as used in the statute and introduced a safe harbor provision for messages sent via SMS or text. These amendments, introduced in HB 761, have been signed into law by Gov. Ron DeSantis and are effective, by the bill’s own terms, as of May 26.