America's communications commission has fined a man who made nearly 100 million robocalls. A robocall is made by a computer programme. The commission fined the man $120 million. They say he was a threat to public safety. The man's calls were illegal because many of them were made to "critical emergency phone lines". Many other calls went to mobile phones and home telephones without the person being called wanting that call. This means the call was a nuisance call. This is like spam e-mail, which is also unwanted and annoying.
The man committed a crime. He carried out "one of the largest and most dangerous illegal robocalling campaigns...ever investigated". He made 96 million robocalls in three months in 2016. It was part of a "telemarketing scheme". He used a technique called "neighbor spoofing" to trick people to answer the calls. The people thought the calls were from a local telephone number. He tricked people into believing that the calls were from well-known companies. Callers were passed on to call centres that tried to sell them property. The man said he did nothing wrong.