U.S. National Do-Not-Call Registry On the Way?

WinkyN writes "Yay! The U.S. House of Representatives overwhelmingly passed a measure that creates a national "do not call" list for telemarketers. Telemarketers are required to check the list every three months and can be fined up to $11,000 each time they violate the law. Now I won't have to ignore my telephone when it rings since more than 50 percent of my calls are from telemarketers." Congress is just getting around to passing a budget bill to run the government for fiscal year 2003 (started last October), and we're now in the time period when everything and the kitchen sink gets thrown into it just before it passes. Good to know that there's at least one useful piece of legislation.

Who will it be?

[silicon_synapse]

My guess is that someone has a change of heart at the last minute that just happens to coincide with a large increase in their bank ballance. This will never go into effect.

Used to get 5-10 calls a night....

[LordYUK]

... from telemarketers, usually from AT&T about long distance. Then I switched from the local crap service to MCI's neighborhood plan, and I get at most 1 a week, and then its usually from some charity organization like the local police or something, so I dont know if thats really considered telemarketing...

At any rate, thats how I fixed my problem... and free long distance rocks when playing vid games with people in other states!! :-)

As much as I like the idea ...

[funkman]

I don't think its the job or responsibility of the federal government to dictate whom businesses may or may not call.

More Big Brother Government?

[Pave Low]

I'm kind of confused about the slashdot crowd's hypocrisy by hating all these Big Brother and anti-free speech laws, and then cheering new laws that just turn the government into more Big Brother.

In my opinion, new laws like these are not needed and will just bring more overhead and telemarketers will just find loopholes around this. Why not just enforce the laws on the books against harassment?

This just sets a precedent for creating more National "do not do this" lists that threaten our rights as well as these "evil companies".

Re:We can only hope...

[silicon_synapse]

There are already exemptions for political parties, charities, and businesses you have a preexisting relationship with. I believe businesses can contact you if you've done business with them within so many months/years or if you're currently doing business with them.

Re:What's the point

[djward]

Also, there's a built-in way around it:

>> Charities, surveys and calls on behalf of politicians would be exempt.

"Hello, we'd like you to take our quick survey... in return, we'll let you switch to our long-distance service for only..."

bullshit

[Erris]

My wife and I did that and the same people called right back the next day. Low budget callers simply give phone books to their $5/hour employees and tell them to call. Most other places just don't care.

Is this the real deal?

[mrkurt]

I wonder if this bill will be the real deal. Skimming over it on Thomas [loc.gov], the bill is merely what they call an 'implementation' act. Both the FCC and FTC are to submit suggested reglations for the do-not-call list. Apparently the FCC is given precedence, and AFAIK they haven't come out with any proposed rules yet. They may not be as tough as those already proposed by the FTC.

What I do know is that a few weeks ago, Rep. Billy Tauzin was all-fired against the FTC regulations. Yet, in the article I read on a service supplied by AP [looksmart.com], he was very supportive of this bill passing. Perhaps, because the devil is in the details. Sen. Fritz Hollings, proponent of that wonderful "Fritz chip" we've heard so much about, also was mentioned as lauding the passage of this bill.

I sense that if consumer advocates don't keep their eyes on the ball, do-not-call advocates will get rolled by Tauzin and Hollings, who have a reputation for standing up for big business interests in Hollywood and among the telcos. I am sure they will be ready to assist the telemarketers, if the price is right.

Yup...

[TCPALaw]

The FTC do-not-call list will not apply to calls from those industries (the FTC is not empowered to regulate them) but it WILL apply to calls from telemarketing firms hired BY those industries that call on their behalf. The second shoe (a bigger and heavier one) is the FCC action [fcc.gov] that will be announced in a month or two... the FCC DOES have the express authority to enact a nationwide do-not-call list that does apply to all of those industries - every one of them.

The real question is

[truth_revealed]

who the their right mind would not want to be part of a "do not call" registry? Lonely or insane people? People with too much money to burn? The government would save a lot of money creating a "please call" registry. That way the drug companies would know exactly who to target their anti-depressant drugs to.

Stopping telemarketers

[Reality Master 101]

This is certainly a step in the right direction, but if you want do something now, do what I did which has actually almost completely stopped telemarking calls.

Just interrupt their spiel and say the magic words: "could you take me off the call-list, please?" They will usually immediately stop and just say "Sure!" and hang up. Don't get your blood pressure up, just say the magic words and you're gone.

Since I stopped getting annoyed and did this absolutely consistently, telemarking calls have almost completely stopped. The only ones I still get are automated recordings where I don't feel like trying to drill-down to a real person. They're pretty rare, though.

Re:Fax Law

[terraformer]

Do you file a complaint with your state or the FTC about it? These laws are only as effective as the citizens are good about filing complaints.

Re:As much as I like the idea ...

[Surreal_Streaker]

I don't think its the job or responsibility of the federal government to dictate whom businesses may or may not call.

No, but it is the responsibility of the government to keep unwanted people from invading your home, be they robbers, kidnappers or telemarketers.

You really want them to...

[iamacat]

take you off their "don't call" list?

Side effect for statistical surveys?

[sterno]

What kind of impact will such a law have on statistical surveys? I mean, I don't want people trying to sell me stuff but I'm always happy to answer a survey. The problem I can see with this is that large groups of people are now going to be eliminated from the statistical sampling pool. Up until now, random phone sampling was the best way to get a statistically significant sample, but this could harm that. If a relatively even distribution of people get on these lists, then maybe it won't be a problem. Heck, it might even save time and money for survey companies since they don't have to call people who don't want to talk.

There was already some suggestion that in this past election, statistical projections were skewed because of people using call blocking technology, etc. This would just make that sort of skewing worse. It also makes one wonder if that support for the war right now is not what it appears to be. It may be that the statistics skew that number higher or lower because people aren't putting up with the surveyors.

Re:As much as I like the idea ...

[Xzzy]

And I don't think I should have to put up with businesses interrupting my private life just because they want to make an extra buck.

Since I doubt these companies are going to change their behavior on their own, and they sure as heck won't stop because I ask them to.. that kind of leaves uncle sam to take care of the problem, doesn't it?

That's what the government is there for, to make my life easier (or safer).

Re:NYS Do Not Call Registry

[Royster]

I've been on the NYS DNC Registry since day 1.

So, will this Federal DNC Registry supercede the NYS Registry so that I'll have to reregister?

Re:50 percent, huh?

[cgenman]

ATT was the worst offender for a long time. Apparently they do respect do-not-call requests, but they also call with the same offer on average once per week. It makes you wonder why you would go with a company who burns money calling you every week, but can't adequately staff a help line.

Loophole big enough to drive a truck through

[coinreturn]

Read the article - surveys are exempt. Does that mean if they survey you on some bullcrap first, then do the sales talk, they're exempt? Or could they just do a survey to see if you're interested in some aluminum siding (which they sell)?

Re:Personally...

[FuzzyBad-Mofo]

Unlike spammers, each telemarketer can only hit one 'victim' at a time,

I guess you've never heard of the predictive dialer? Using this device, a single telemarketer can annoy many people simultanously, because it places many calls at once. The first person to pick up will get to speak to the telemarketer, and the rest will be wondering why their line is dead. A complete waste of their time.

they are not anonymous (they can't withhold their number)

I have yet to receive a telemarketing call that shows a valid number on the caller id. If that's not what you mean by withholding their number, I'd love to know how to get their contact information.

and will more often than not leave you alone if you say "I'm sorry, but you are wasting your time. Please remove me from your list."

I played that game for a time, the calls stopped for awhile but after a few months they started picking up again. Nowadays, even if I pick up the phone to tell them, I just get a dead line because of their damn predictive dialers. This is the last straw. They telemarketers have proven time and again that they cannot be trusted to self regulate. It's high time for a national do-not call list.

Re: Surveys

[jpm165]

Jeesh, if you had bothered to read the article you are commenting on, you would have seen that it says "Charities, surveys and calls on behalf of politicians would be exempt". Next time RTFA!

Re:More Big Brother Government?

[forkboy]

Disallowing a corporation (a non-entity as far as most people are concerned) from harassing or annoying private citizens is hardly the same thing as preventing a private citizen from doing something that annoys or harms corporations.

The bill of rights protects individuals, not corporations...let Uncle Sam stick it to em all he wants. The laws on the books will not prevent telemarketers from calling you, as you is quite obvious. The do not call lists that are already in place in various states work great, harm no one , and make life better in general for everyone.

Re:Jobs program for China.

[Stonehand]

That's unlikely. For spam, since many admins in the Orient don't seem to give a damn about who they're relaying e-mail for, and since they don't (can't, really, as long as they relay blindly) charge money for this, spammers use 'em.

Free phone relays, however, don't exist as far as I know. International calls (a) mostly require somebody to actually BE there, and (b) cost a non-trivial amount of money, normally.

Re:Are there exceptions?

[rmadmin]

Uhm, this wont be abused! How about this example: I buy something from Hotmail, thus prior business is established. Suddenly, NBC, Comcast, and every other little thing MS has itself dug into starts calling me. Ick ick ick.. I don't like it.

Or is their a check in place to stop this from happening?

Is telemarketing effective anymore?

[Phoenix]

Is it really?

Granted now to sell your product you can now call thousands of people in the country and you can send millions of spam to the world at large. Granted that this is very efficient as one person can send off several thousands of E-Mails with a single click or can make hundreds of calls in a day's time thanks to the new computerized dialer systems.

But is it really worth it to the company? Or is it efficiency at the cost of bad consumer feeling?

I'm betting on the latter.

Take X-10.com and thier products. When I forst heard of them and their home automation equipment I was interested. When I learned that it could work under Linux I was thinking of the major geek factor there. I had an old touch screen pentium wall mount case that I could have made the heart of the system in nothing flat. I was really seriously considering doing my house up into my own little nerdvana.

Then the spam came.

All I ever got was pop-ups everywhere I went and the only way to get rid of them was to go to their site and beg to be left alone for 30 days...one lousy month. And the quality of the ads were starting to get offensive. Scantily clad women in ads that implied (if not flat out said) "Use this camera to spy on people".

Not "Use this camera for security" or "This product will let you monitor yout infant child from anywhere in the house" or even "Use our products to make toast in the kitchen with a command from the bathroom". No, it was and still is the semi-nekkid women and the implication that you too can become a high tech peeping tom.

After a steady barage of that message I decided to spend my money on getting a home theatre system instead. They cost themselves a customer and perhaps more than just I with all the others whom I've talked to who feel the same way.

Telemarketers are the same way. I don't want to have to be reminded that I'm going to die in 50 years by some guy from a funeral parlor. I don't want to be bothered during dinner by my long distance carrier asking if I want to switch to them (do they NOT check to make sure that I'm not already a customer first?)

Something like this would be a godsend enabling me to be able to spend time with my family and friends in peace. It'd be an ever greater godsend if they could get rid of those stupid "International Drivers License" spams I get 100 times a day as well.

Phoenix

Re:Confusion on Budget for This

[slow_flight]

How is that any different than making a store buy a liquor permit? Some can afford it more easily than others - how is that unconstitutional?

Re:Are there exceptions?

[plimsoll]

That sucks. Many of the unsolicited solicitations I get are from MBNA, my credit card company. I get calls every once in a while asking if I want to do a balance transfer, or sign up for their platinum card, etc.

So if this new law passes, MBNA and other companies I already do business with will be the only ones who can call me with their "special offers?"

Today I get my bill from them every month festooned with ads for mailing address return label stickers, wind-up flashlights, "world's smallest" FM radios, etc.

Tomorrow they'll be the only ones who can call me at home to solicit the things telemarketers always have.

Wouldn't it be more effective if those businesses you already do business with are limited in their solicitations to hawking a range of products related to their industry only?

Re:For 5 bucks a month..

[Anonymous Coward]

So over a five-year period, you pay 300 bucks (12 * 5 * 5) to not get telemarketer calls... I prefer the cheaper route of signing up for my state's dnc list and eventually the national dnc list.

Re:Privacy Director works for me

[Anonymous Coward]

That's the really great thing about the phone companies and telemarketing. First, they sell your name to anyone and everyone who can pony up the cash. Then they charge you for a service that tries to prevent these people from calling you.

Lovely.

Re:Too bad

[GreyPoopon]

so even with the new legislation we can still expect to receive calls from newspapers and non-profit organizations.

I wonder how long it will be before some telemarketing company spins off a non-profit arm that can be used to "legally" make those unwanted calls. I hope the legislation takes this into account by targeting the company on behalf of which the call is made.

Re:Too bad

[Safety Cap]

I give through the United Way so I know the groups are worthy of my money.

If you take $0.15 of every dollar and throw it in the street, then give the other $0.85 to a worthy charity [eff.org] directly, you'll be contributing more than you do when you give to UW.