This bill isn’t limited to phone calls. It also applies to any bot on any social media site that receives more than 10mm visitors per month that exists to “incentivize a purchase or sale of goods or services in a commercial transaction”. In other words, a Facebook Messenger bot answering pre-sale questions is violating this law unless it has a massive disclosure about it being a bot. At first glance it also appears that this law would make chats in which a bot handles most but not all of the interaction illegal. For example, an online chat with a support tech that begins with an automated “this is Larry, how can I help you?” seems to be illegal under this law. Larry exists, but the bot is “impersonating” Larry during the automated portions of the conversation. This is a poorly thought out, overly broad law.

One sidenote...HN really needs a way to just “save” articles. I didn’t want to upvote this article, because that sends the wrong signal - that I am somehow in favor of unworkable regulations. I didn’t want to “favorite” it either, because this certainly doesn’t fall into the category of my favorite articles that I’d like to keep around on that list for a long time. But I do want to keep track of the discussion today, because I find it fascinating just how many technologists are in favor of onerous regulations governing their own industry. Currently, there is no way to simply save an article on HN without upvoting or favoriting it.