FCC Forces Company to Stop Dial-a-Porn, Pay Fine of $50,000
The Federal Communications Commission, in its first crackdown under federal laws restricting “dial-a-porn” operations, forced a Northern California company Monday to shut down a service that provided allegedly obscene telephone messages and to pay a $50,000 fine.
Under terms of a consent agreement obtained by the FCC with Audio Enterprises of Mill Valley and its president, Wendy King, the company agreed to halt transmission of its dial-a-porn messages. Many messages had been heard by people under 18 years of age because the firm failed to establish certain FCC-mandated safeguards, officials said.
Enforcement action is still pending against a second King-related firm, Intercambio Inc. of San Jose, the FCC said.
Gerald Brock, chief of the commission’s common carrier bureau, said that the agreement “not only has driven an illegal dial-a-porn operator out of the business, but has done it quickly and efficiently compared with the alternative of extensive and costly litigation.”
Monday’s action marked the first punitive measure taken directly by the FCC. Last year, the Justice Department obtained guilty pleas and $50,000 fines from two dial-a-porn providers in Utah that were not in compliance with FCC rules.
Under still-evolving federal law, the FCC in 1985 required companies that transmit sexually explicit phone recordings to take steps to prevent their access by children. The dial-a-porn rules require the use of an access code, which would be made available by mail to adults, or prepayment by credit card to obtain such services.
The Audio Enterprises case was brought to the FCC’s attention when a group of California parents filed a complaint alleging that their children had engaged in sexual experimentation, with one child being sexually molested, after listening to a 900-number phone message. Callers were billed 50 cents for the first minute and 35 cents for each succeeding minute.
More than 3 million calls were made to Audio Enterprises in the 11 months it was in business, officials said. The company halted its messages last January after the FCC investigation began and is committed not to resume them under Monday’s settlement unless it restricts access to adults.
“The $50,000 payment that the dial-a-porn operator will have to pay to the government under this agreement shows that there will be a high price attached to failure to obey the law scrupulously in this important area,” Brock said in a statement.
No Access for Children
He said the settlement also requires that any other dial-a-porn firms with whom Wendy King is affiliated be in compliance with the law by making sure that children do not gain access to their messages.
FCC Chairman Dennis R. Patrick said that while the commission has not yet voted final approval of the agreement, “I am gratified that the common carrier bureau has followed through on enforcement of the dial-a-porn law as a priority of the commission.
“While this commission is second to none in its commitment to the First Amendment, obscenity is not protected by the First Amendment, and the court has long recognized a legitimate interest in restricting access of minors to certain sexually explicit materials.”
Last April, Congress decided to ban all indecent commercial interstate telephone messages. However, in response to lawsuits filed by adult message services, federal district courts in New York and California ruled that such a ban would be unconstitutional.
