A robocall has an almost unremarkable quality. The majority of people end the call in a matter of seconds, mutter something under their breath, and carry on with their day. Sometimes, though, one of those automated calls ends up having a legal significance. This is what happened with Register.com, a domain registration company that has been in business since the early days of the internet. It seems that the company continued to call numbers long after the people it believed it was reaching had stopped using them.
Lewis v. Register.com, Inc., a lawsuit filed in an Indiana federal court, is at the heart of this. The main allegation is simple: Register.com allegedly called cell phone numbers that had already been permanently disconnected and reassigned to new users using an artificial or prerecorded voice. It is illegal to use robocall technology to contact someone without their prior consent under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act, the federal law that regulates unsolicited calls. The problem is made worse by the reassigned number. They weren’t even the appropriate individuals.
Newfold Digital, the parent company of Register.com, has not acknowledged any misconduct. In settlements like this, that is the norm. However, in order to settle the dispute, it has agreed to pay $1.5 million, which will be divided among 453 phone numbers listed in court documents. Because that class is so small, the cost per individual may be high. If every eligible class member files a legitimate claim, court estimates place the cost per phone number at about $2,130. That is a fairly significant number for a class action.
The disputed settlement period spans from February 12, 2021, to November 24, 2025. The Reassigned Numbers Database, which is kept up to date by the Federal Communications Commission, is a system created specifically to stop errors of this nature. Before making a call, businesses are supposed to check it. It’s unclear from the public record whether Register.com failed to do so or just didn’t check often enough. It is evident that the person who received one of those calls believed the intrusion was serious enough to bring a lawsuit.
The deadline for submitting claims was June 15, 2026. That window is now closed for those who missed it. Payments won’t start until the court gives its approval and any appeals are settled. The final approval hearing is set for July 7, 2026. These tasks usually take longer than anticipated. If it continues into the fall or beyond, those who are still waiting shouldn’t be shocked.
It’s important to consider this in a larger context. Over the past ten years, TCPA litigation has increased significantly, and settlements like this one, which are modest in total amount but significant per person, have become a common occurrence in the legal environment surrounding automated communications and telemarketing. These lawsuits have been filed against businesses of all sizes, frequently as a result of call systems that were not updated to take number reassignments and opt-out requests into account. The legal risk is not insignificant.
The history of Register.com itself is noteworthy. It’s not its first class action. A different lawsuit filed back in 2003 claimed that the business was rerouting recently registered domain names to its own advertising page without making this clear to clients. Class members received a five-dollar coupon as part of the settlement of that case as well. The difference between that result and the current estimate of $2,130 indicates how courts and regulators have changed their perspectives on consumer protection over the last 20 years, as well as how seriously the TCPA is now being taken.
The outcome of the July hearing and whether any parties object will determine whether the settlement fulfills its promises. It is currently in that well-known legal limbo, approved in theory but not yet finalized.
