An act to amend Section 17538.41 of the Business and Professions Code, relating to advertising.
Summary
AB 1865 would amend California’s text message advertising law to add a time-of-day restriction on otherwise permitted marketing texts. Under the bill, text message advertisements that are already allowed under existing exceptions—such as messages from businesses with an existing relationship or from affiliates with consent—could not be sent between 9:00 p.m. and 9:00 a.m. The sender would have to account for the recipient’s local time zone based on the phone number, so the quiet-hours rule would apply according to the recipient’s local time rather than the sender’s location.
The bill also creates new enforcement tools. A recipient who receives a prohibited text could sue the sender if the sender knew or should have known the message violated the time restriction, and could seek $500 per message, actual or statutory damages, punitive damages, attorney’s fees, costs, and injunctive relief. In addition, a public prosecutor or the Attorney General could bring a civil enforcement action and seek civil penalties and equitable relief. The bill expressly states that a violation of the new timing rule is not a crime, even though existing law generally treats violations of Section 17538.41 as misdemeanors.
Impact
AB 1865 would narrow the lawful window for text message advertisements under Business and Professions Code Section 17538.41 by adding a statewide quiet-hours rule for commercial and political text ads. It would affect businesses, political committees, candidates, affiliates, and other senders that use text marketing to California residents, while leaving the existing consent and relationship-based exceptions in place during daytime hours. The bill would also shift enforcement from primarily criminal and unfair-competition remedies to a new civil-only remedy for violations of the timing restriction, with private rights of action and public enforcement by prosecutors and the Attorney General.
Sentiment
The available vote history suggests the bill has generally been received favorably in committee, with unanimous support in one committee vote and only one dissenting vote in a later vote. The bill was advanced with a majority vote and then re-referred to Appropriations, indicating movement through the process but also continued fiscal review. No committee transcript is available here, so the record shows procedural support rather than detailed debate, but the vote pattern suggests broad agreement on the consumer-protection goal of limiting late-night marketing texts.
Contention
The main policy tension appears to be between consumer privacy and marketing flexibility. Supporters are likely to view the bill as a modest protection against intrusive late-night texts, especially because it applies even when the recipient has otherwise consented to receive advertising messages. Potential concerns would center on compliance burdens for senders, especially the requirement to determine recipients’ local time zones from phone numbers, and on the added exposure to private lawsuits and civil penalties. Another point of contention is the bill’s decision to make timing violations noncriminal, which preserves a civil enforcement model but may be seen as either a limitation or a safeguard depending on the stakeholder.
An act to amend Sections 19813 and 19883 of the Business and Professions Code, relating to gambling. Section 69842 of the Government Code, relating to courts.