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... for a social problem.

Unless this is not only illegal, but aiding them is illegal as well (Telco's) this will not stop. Furthermre, if people are not held acountable at every level, this will not change.

This is like standard spam. If the income is higher than the cost, it will continue.

I work abt a company that uses robocalls. We are located in Belgium and are limited in what we can do. Mainly we use it to inform customers about forgetting to do payments. We are aware that people do not like them. They also do not like getting late payment fees, so ...

And in the 20 or so years I have a cellphone, I have not had a person calling me with a commercial offer, let alone a robocall.

And I am not even on the http://www.robinsonlist.be/ where all (legal) companies who do outbound calls will have to look. It also helps that the caller always pays, so no cost for the person who owns the cellphone.

I had about 1 commercial call since I had my cellphone number. I have had it for, I think, 10 to 15 years. And that call was from a company I had a contract with.

I live in belfium and although it it possible to add it to http://www.robinsonlist.be/ s (legit) marketing companies will not contact you, I have not. I have done so for my postal adress and it seems to work.

The thing is that calling will cost the caller, not me. So cold calling is not as efficient. Just cold-calling where you have not opted in is also not allowed.

I know. Why is the governement stepping in here. Stupid EU people doing laws for the people, by the people.

What you try to do is a technical solution for a social problem.

In Belgium you can add yourself to the http://www.robinsonlist.be/ and not get any calls anymore. This needs to be refreshed after two years. A list like this is European law.

For the UK i found http://www.tpsonline.org.uk/tps/index.html that says:

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And when I moved to this house, I registered with the TPS. In consequence, the only cold calls I get (10 a day is not uncommon) are from companies calling from the Philippines or India. I can only deduce that the previous occupants had got onto a number of "sucker lists". What the half-life of these lists is, I don't know, but it certainly seems to be more than a year.

http://egbg.home.xs4all.nl/counterscript.html

In Belgium you can add yourself to the http://www.robinsonlist.be/ and not get any calls anymore. This needs to be refreshed after two years. A list like this is European law.

For the UK i found http://www.tpsonline.org.uk/tps/index.html that says:
It is a legal requirement that all organisations (including charities, voluntary organisations and political parties) do not make such calls to numbers registered on the TPS unless they have your consent to do so.

Also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Do_not_call_list for a few other countries.

The information belongs to your phone providers/Facebook/etc,

It should not belong to them. It should belong to me.
And because of that it is not a companies choice to hand it over, it is mine (or the laws if there is a warrant involved).

In Europe (at least in Belgium) a company can not sell the data, unless it very much specifies this very clearly. And even then there are serious restrictions.

Oh and if you are living in Belgium. Register on http://www.robinsonlist.be/ I have not had a cold call or direct marketing snail-mail in years, except of those that are exempt. And these are companies that I have a business relation with and if I so choose, I can ask them to stop sending me stuff.

Although this is a nice workaround, apparently something better exists in Europe, or at least Belgium. The ONLY annoying calls I get are from companies I have a working relationship with AND where I left my number.

That means about 4 or 5 calls a year if that much.

I also never heard anything about friends that are being harassed, unless from companies they have done business with.

I have added myself to http://www.robinsonlist.be/ so I do not get any unwanted mail from companies that do not know me. I urge everybody to do the same if you live in Belgium.

So again, nice workaround, but a permanent solution is possible and would benefit everybody, including those who do not have Asterisks.

You just put a robots.txt file outside your door.

In Belgium you do that by registering on the http://www.robinsonlist.be/

For Belgium there is http://www.robinsonlist.be/ which works for direct mail and phone calls and works very good. I get no phone calls and no direct mail in my name, except those that are allowed.
Allowed are companies I bought something and much worse, political parties.

I have not had a telemarketing call in several years.

There is the Robinsonlist. Also look at the Anti-Telemarketing Script and then there is: The counterscript available in several languages and also in PDF.

In Denmark telesales are illegal except for a few product groups (mainly newspapers). You can opt out of those as well.

In Belgium you can not opt out if you have a business relationship with the sender. e.g. my provider could send me a message each day. If there is no business relation, you can opt-out with the Robinson list. This will also work for snailmail and email and sms.

It takes a while (two or three months) to take effect, but after that you have a great silence. If you live in Belgium, it is certainly worth using. The site is strangly enough not well known.