House Votes to Launch Do-Not-Call List 1007
Zendar writes "Yahoo! has a story on how it took less than an hour with a final vote of 412-8 to approve the 'do not call list'. "Votes to overturn the judge's order are expected mid-afternoon in both chambers, according to Republican leadership aides." The President is expected to sign today. Some choice quotes: "Fifty million Americans can't be wrong." and "This bill will pass faster than a consumer hanging up on a telemarker at dinner time." CNN also has the story."
Shocked (Score:5, Interesting)
They did a good thing?
I take back some of the bad things I have said about them. Now if only they could continue this trend...think about it...RIAA ruled unconstitutional, it's members shot. MS seperated into many different companies, forced to develop OSS.
50 million Americans CAN be wrong (Score:1, Interesting)
The fallacy of their argument... (Score:5, Interesting)
They could make an arguemnt for free-speech. I say the could make it (without me laughing), but I will disagree in the end with that one too.
But as for jobs -- it will actually make the telemarketer MORE money -- if there are less telemarketers! The current game plan is simply to call everyone on the planet from the time they are born until the time they die like every second of every day. I would suggest that TARGETED, AGREED, and WARRANTED solicition will result in a lower-cost of SALES OVERHEAD than currently spamming everyone on the plantet, with the same rate of success!
Of course, the telephone companies sit quietly in a corner and pout as it was their corner upon which the pimp was solicting his wares.
I would love to wake up in an opt-in world, but until that day I have to have some way to say, "No, I don't want a year's subscription to volvo-hotrod magazine.".
Peace Out.
Re:How warm and fuzzy.. (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Regulations (Score:1, Interesting)
Every time I answer one of these calls, I tell them to put me on their do-not-call list. But you know what? There's always some new dipshit company calling.
Enough is enough. Fuck 'em. Let them find new jobs.
Re:Regulations (Score:2, Interesting)
Based on today's vote, I think it is pretty clear that the legislature had given the F.T.C. this authority. The reason for the hurried vote is not just the public outcry from yesterday's ruling. Legislators take offense when a court misreads their intent. They are simply clarifying their earlier position.
And why is the end of telemarketing a bad thing? Sure people will lose their jobs, but industries die and employees are forced to gain new skills everyday. This was an industry that made their profit by harrassing people in their own homes. The telemarketing industry should never have been allowed to exist to begin with.
As far as those employees who lose their jobs, perhaps the fines collected for violation of the do-not-call list could go to a fund to pay for skill training programs for former telemarketing workers? Sounds like a plan to me.
Re:Representative government? (Score:3, Interesting)
ostiguy
Take charge of your own life (Score:2, Interesting)
If a citizen wants to choose to have a telephone hooked up to the entire rest of the world, then that citizen should accept the responsibilities that come along with that.
If you don't want strangers calling you and selling you things, there are several solutions to that problem that don't involve the government.
You can have all phone calls with blocked numbers (the ones that telemarketers use) go into a special queue for screening. This is a service available to just about everybody with a phone. I don't see why the government has to solve this problem.
I think that if you're too dumb to configure your phone to not take calls you don't want, that you deserve to get called at dinner time by a stranger selling discount vacations to Mexico.
Re:Regulations (Score:2, Interesting)
Um, no, they were influenced by citizens. Fifty million pissed-off citizens.
If we're worried about killing off industries that employ, hey, let's legalize heroin trafficking. Plenty of folks gainfully employed there.
It's a shame that the FTC needs help from Congress to carry out its mission, actually.
Everyone knows that this could mean the end off telemarketing as an economical way of doing [sic] bussiness.
Why do you think we all signed up for it?
While many of us don't like people selling us things we don't like but thats capiatalism you know.
I have some Viagra substitutes to sell you, along with an opportunity to move money out of Nigeria. What's your phone number?
most ironic quote ev-errrrr (Score:2, Interesting)
That's funny, I seem to remember the US government putting out a PSA saying 'only 20% of americans smoke weed.' Well, if we have around 300 mil americans, that means around 60 mil weed smokers, right? Yet I don't see congress saying that those 60 million americans aren't wrong. Not that more proof of government hypocrisy was needed, but there it is anyway.
Re:Where do they come from? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Representative government? (Score:2, Interesting)
I know what's worked for me may not work for everyone, but switching to caller ID and voicemail has done wonders. Plus I only have the cell phone, so that's doubly helpful since it's already illegal to cold call a cell phone. With these devices, the only regulation I feel strongly about is something that prevents number blocking or other measures to render caller ID useless.
Quote of the Year (Score:3, Interesting)
"This legislation got to the House floor faster than a consumer can hang up on a telemarketer at dinnertime"
Even as I post this comment, my phone is ringing yet again.
Caller ID says: Unavailable
Fifth telemarketing call today, and it's not even 3PM. In the last few months, the calls have gotten much more frequent. They call from 9:30 AM until 9:30 PM, making at least 10 calls daily. I guess it's a last ditch effort before the DNC list goes into effect.
Cognitive dissonance (admittedly off topic) (Score:3, Interesting)
Just wondering...
Re:How about an anti-spam bill? (Score:2, Interesting)
The telemarketers sure screwed themselves. (Score:5, Interesting)
A mere couple weeks ago I was somewhat surprised how few people I know in real life have heard of the Do Not Call list until I told them about it. Now that the telemarketing companies won a court decision and forced Congress' hand, the news (TV, newspaper, Internet) has been abuzz with this story.
So now instead of losing out on 50 million people, most of which one would assume are very ANTI-telemarketing and extremely unlikely to buy anything from them anyway, the industry will probably lose many millions more who didn't even know about the list until it hit front pages everywhere in the nation, thanks to the court ruling.
So now when the list DOES go into effect, and it will since the ruling was just a temporary setback, the industry will probably have doubled the names on the list simply by bringing the existence of it to the national forefront with their stupid lawsuits.
Way to go telemarketers! Keep up the good work!
Re:Representative government? (Score:3, Interesting)
There's a bit more to it than that. I work at home, and when I first started, there was no Do Not Call list in New York. I would get about 20 calls a day from telemarketers. A majority of those would be hangups... when their automated dialers call 10 numbers at once and whoever answers first talks to an operator and the other 9 get hung up on (an oversimplification of the process, but still accurate).
In addition, nearly every telemarketer hid or forged their caller ID information (trivial with the right equipment), so caller id display, call block and *69 (call return) would not work. When enough people started blocking calls from "private" or "restricted" numbers, the telemarketers responded by having their equipment respond with a fraudulent "out of area" caller id message, which got through the privacy-block.
Many of the ones that did pick up were automated messages that could not be hung up on until the message was complete. They simply would not release the line. So if, for instance, at the frustration of receiving my 20th telemarketing call of the day... and hence, my 20th interruption to trying to have a productive day... I became so upset I had a heart attack... I'd be dead... since I would be unable to hang up and call 911 until after the automated dialer was finished playing its message.
Now... let's balance the productivity, livelihood, happiness, safety, etc of the many people who receive these annoying calls with the minimum-wage salaries earned by the very few who place these calls.
Re:How about an anti-spam bill? (Score:2, Interesting)
"For present purposes we may and do assume that freedom of speech and of the press - which are protected by the 1st Amendment from abridgment by Congress - are among the fundamental personal rights and liberties protected by the due process clause of the 14th Amendment from impairment by the states."
So you're in fact seeing the results of all this jossling of Consitutional language. Where there once was, as the Constitution is written, a consistant method for applying these laws that could be understood fairly easily, we are now faced with very inconsistant and contradictory laws, where rights are being both expanded and constrained (in some cases, thrown out entirely) at the whim of the courts. In fact, when arguing law, it's best to just toss the Consitution out the window, as it has little actual influence on a case as the courts simply amend parts they do not like. That's a comforting fact, isn't it?
Free Speech (Score:0, Interesting)
Re:Take charge of your own life (Score:3, Interesting)
Yes, and now we can put the same sign on our phone lines.
Re:How about an anti-spam bill? (Score:2, Interesting)
"The liberty which the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment protects against denial by the States is the liberal and identical 'freedom of speech or of the press' which the First Amendment forbids only Congress to abridge . . . the powers of Congress and of the States over this subject are not of the same dimensions, and that because Congress probably could not enact this law it does not follow that the States may not."
By extension, everything "guaranteed" in the Constitution is not guaranteed at all, but subject to the whim of the courts. Of course, the Constitution did not grant the courts this power. The way our judicial system is working today is, in fact, unconstitutional.
Re:Where do they come from? (Score:2, Interesting)
Hey. Speaking as a Brit I'm quite content with my "size". So why I want anyone telling me to pay them to make by penis bigger is just a mystery.
Most of mine certianly comes from the US. Or, at the very least, comes on behalf of US companies.
I don't see quite so much Asian-based spam these days.
Then again, this could be due to a combination of my mailhost using Spamassassin, and my mail-client auto-moving anything from @yahoo.com.tw to the trash folder.