One-to-One Consent Rule Struck Down: What the Eleventh Circuit Ruling Means for Lead Form Calls

What the court decided on January 24, 2025

In December 2023 the FCC adopted new consent rules aimed at lead generation websites (FCC 23-107, adopted December 13, 2023). Those are the sites that ask for your phone number in exchange for a quote, then pass it to many companies. The rules had two parts. First, a consumer could consent to telemarketing robocalls or robotexts from only one seller at a time. Second, the calls had to be “logically and topically associated with the interaction that prompted the consent.” The change to 47 C.F.R. 64.1200(f)(9) was set to take effect January 27, 2025.

It never did. On January 24, 2025, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit decided Insurance Marketing Coalition Ltd. v. FCC, No. 24-10277. Judge Branch wrote for a panel that also included Judges Luck and Lagoa. The court held “that the FCC exceeded its statutory authority under the TCPA because the 2023 Order’s new consent restrictions impermissibly conflict with the ordinary statutory meaning of ‘prior express consent.'” It vacated that part of the order.

How the court defined consent

The court looked at the plain meaning of the words Congress used. Its test: “to give ‘prior express consent’ to receive a robocall, one need only ‘clearly and unmistakably’ state, before receiving the robocall, that he is willing to receive the robocall.” The court added, “One-to-one consent is not required.”

The court was also blunt about the second requirement. It wrote that “what ‘logically and topically associated’ means is anyone’s guess.”

That definition still has teeth. Consent has to be clear, it has to come before the call, and it has to be given voluntarily. The court described express consent as consent “that is clearly and unmistakably stated.” A buried line in fine print may not meet that bar, and a caller who cannot prove it had consent has a problem.

What the FCC did next

The FCC moved quickly. On the same day as the ruling, its Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau postponed the rule by order DA 25-90. The court’s mandate issued on April 30, 2025. On July 14, 2025, the FCC released order DA 25-621, which repealed the revised version of section 64.1200(f)(9) and restored the version that existed before. That change was published in the Federal Register at 90 FR 42137 and took effect August 29, 2025.

What this means if you get calls after filling out a form

You have probably seen this. You ask one website for an insurance or solar quote, and within an hour several companies call or text. The one-to-one rule would have made that harder. With the rule gone, a single form can still list many sellers, and each one may claim you agreed to hear from it.

Claiming consent and proving it are different things. For telemarketing robocalls and robotexts, the seller still needs prior express written consent under the restored rule. Our page on prior express written consent explains what a valid signed agreement has to say. If the company cannot produce a record showing you clearly agreed to calls from that specific company, its consent defense may fail.

Look closely at who called. A company you never heard of, calling about something unrelated to the site you visited, is a common pattern in these cases. So are calls that begin after you gave a number on a sweepstakes or coupon page. Callers in health insurance and solar marketing often rely on lead forms.

You can also end any consent you gave. Since April 11, 2025, callers must honor an opt-out made by any reasonable method within ten business days. Our guide to revoking consent to calls and texts covers the words that count.

What to do if a lead form started the calls

Write down the website you used and the date, if you remember them. Save every text and note every call, including the company name each caller gave. Then reply STOP to texts and tell live callers to stop. Calls that continue after that are usually the strongest part of a case, because consent no longer covers them.

If a company says you consented, ask it for the record: the website, the date, the time and the consent language. You are entitled to see what they are relying on before you accept it. If the calls kept coming after you said stop, a free case review can tell you whether the consent they claim would hold up.