In a long-awaited decision, the United State Supreme Court
issued a ruling in Facebook, Inc. v. Duguid, No.
19-511, on April 1, 2021, concluding that, to qualify as an
autodialer under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act
("TCPA"), a device must have the capacity to use a random
or sequential number generator to store or to produce phone
numbers. In other words, in contrast to what some courts had
concluded, it is not enough for the device simply to be able to
store and then automatically dial numbers. This decision resolved a
Circuit split in interpreting the TCPA and settled a debate among
at least four different interpretations of the autodialer
definition.
The Facebook case began with a seemingly
beneficial act: Facebook sent automated text alerts to Noah Duguid
informing him of someone attempting to access his Facebook account
using an unknown browser. The problem was that Duguid did not have
a Facebook account (it was unclear why Facebook had
