On DDoS, SPAM, Telemarketing And Harrasment?

Slak asks: "Just wondering if the laws under which the U.S. Government is pursuing the DDoS attacks on Yahoo! and Amazon could be applied to telemarketers. I mean, here we have a group that is using a public network to bother end users. " This is a good point. We now have fledgling laws against unsolicited commercial e-mail. What about unsolicited commercial phone calls? They are both forms of harassment. However, protections in the digital world have caught up and surpassed the legal protections we have in meatspace against such annoying practices. Could such laws be written without becoming Draconian in nature? Updated

I should clarify. When I speak of "commercial" phone and "commercial" e-mail, I mean unsolicited contact from a company with the intention of selling you something. Telemarketing has become a large problem in the past decade and I see the spammer as the digital cousin of the telemarketer. However, we now have protections from SPAM yet no protection from the telemarketer (believe me, I've tried ... there was no way I could get an anonymous call block in my area and most telemarketers will not identify themselves via CallerID).

How does the Denial of Service attack fit into all of this? It may not be "commercial" traffic, but it is unsolicited and dealing with it does consume your precious time to get the problem fixed. It's yet another form of harrassment, albeit a different and malicious form. It's like someone calling you up every five minutes and then hanging up. Sure it's harmless, but what happens if someone is trying to make an important phone call to you and can't get through?

Will laws be written to combat such behavior? Can such laws be written?

I'd be interested in hearing what you think.

Update: 04/19 05:49 by C : CuriousGeorge113 beamed us this little tidbit: "There's a very interesting SPAM article over at Salon.com today. The article talks about a new SPAM law soon to be in front of Congress, why it won't work, why people SPAM, and why ISP's dont bother to sue SPAMers." so it looks like our protections against SPAMers although in-place rather ineffective. This situation bears watching.

Comments

Junkbusters

[Amphigory]

Junkbuster have a page on dealing with telemarketing. See here. Fact is that there's a lot you can do.

--

Re:We already have laws against phone harrassment

[Windigo The Feral (N]

Mickonline dun said:

I've actually worked in telemarketing The only way you ever take someone's name off (for any type of financial telemarketing) is if they are a pensioner i.e. we couldn't sell them anything. In addition, if we determined from a few houses that this was a low income area we would write that down. So if you don't want to be rung, tell them you're 80 with no money. However, since the CD's with everyones phone numbers on them are sold from company to company, only one company will ever cross you off their list.

Dear Mickonline:

I would be extremely interested to know which telemarketing firm you worked for.

I would like to know this, because if they ever call me I want to be able to nail their balls to the wall. >:)=

You see...your company engaged in two flatly illegal practices.

Firstly...if someome requests that they be placed on your "do not call" list, by law you must maintain that list for ten years. Furthermore, if they also request that you send them your "do not call" policy, you are again required by law to send that to them. (FWIW--you are required to have a "do not call" policy--it's quite illegal to operate without one.)

More info on the law and legal requirements for telemarketers here. Please note that should you violate the law and you run into someone sufficiently pissy (such as myself), such fsck-ups as NOT adding my name to your do-not-call list can be expensive (victims are entitled to sue for $500 per offense, $1500 per "willful" offense [i.e. you knew damn well what you were doing was wrong]...in most states you may sue for up to $1500 in small claims court (no lawyers required), most courts will give summary judgement in favour of the plaintiff if nobody from the telemarketing firm shows up, the court can send a summons to pay the fine Or Else, and court judgements in your favour look very nice in formal complaints to the FCC asking them to Please Shut The Mother-Fsckers Down. :)

The second illegal practice is redlining--purposely blocking out low-income or minority neighbourhoods. (Yes, if you are dealing with finances at all, redlining is illegal in the US. Same if you're dealing in real estate, insurance, etc.--a bank here in Kentucky just got smacked rather hard because it was found that it was redlining low-income minority communities in terms of house loans.) Trust me that if it is ever found out by the feds your former company does this, they might end up not being able to so much as loan a homeless person two bucks for a bottle of Mad Dog 20/20. :) Redlining is still unfortunately common, but the authorities (such as HUD, federal banking regulators, etc.) are becoming far less tolerant of it.

(As an aside--just FWIW, I'm merely writing as a Private Joe who has little tolerance for discrimination (I grew up in a low-income part of the Louisville metro area that was constantly being shat on by the city--literally being used as their dumping grounds for garbage and minimalls and the airport because they figured "the poor hicks in the south part ain't gonna bitch") and little to no tolerance for telemarketers (I literally don't accept calls from telemarketers and survey agencies unless it is from a survey agency that I have called first and who will give me stuff like free food, etc. for my time and trouble :)--even political surveys, I will deliberately give BS answers just to skew their statistics), not to mention junk mailers (I freely admit to using spamtrap names and/or addresses if I must give personal info out--both for email AND snail-mail). Unless you REALLY make it worth my time, don't bother contacting me--if I want to get a service from you, I'll contact you, thank you. :)

(Part of why I am so pissy on this is I've had to deal with Bad Telemarketers like Chemlawn, who literally refused to get off the phone even after I had told them five times that I was not interested, I wanted on their do-not-call list, and I actually WANTED weeds to grow in my yard because I was setting up a nature sanctuary (!). AND they had the audacity to call back a week later, upon which I asked to speak to their supervisor and gave them an earful. They have not called back since.)

It's rather easy to keep from getting telemarketing calls:

1) Use the magic words "Please put me on your do not call list, please remove me from any lists you may sell to other telemarketing agencies, and please mail me a copy of your do not call policy." (The last two are important, because they show you aren't fscking about and it gives the telemarketers more rope to hang themselves by. :)

2) If they get pissy or call you afterwards, ask to speak to the manager (after getting the telemarketer's name, of course). Explain the law to the manager, and ask him at each point if he is aware that:

He must maintain a do-not-call list for 10 years

He must maintain a do-not-call policy and send it on request

He must remove your name from lists sold to other telemarketing agencies on request

He must not call before 9 am local time or after 9 pm local time

If they do not do the above, they are liable under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act for $500 per offense, $1500 per "willful" offense (they knew what they were doing).

Then state, clearly, the spiel in 1) above and state that you are putting them on notice that if they don't send the do-not-call policy and/or they call you at ALL in the next ten years, you will be taking them to small claims court for willful violation of the TCPA. Document all this info including time of the call, etc.

3) If they are the least bit naughty to you (i.e. they call again, fail to mail a do-not- call policy, etc.) then sue the bastards. :) Most telemarketers won't show up in court, it costs anywhere from free to around fifty dollars to file a case in small claims court, and you get anywhere from $500 to $1500 per offense--in a way, it really IS a way to "make money fast". :) Courts will handle collections, by the way--if they don't pay, they suddenly become more in trouble (read: contempt of court--in the worst case, the CEOs can be jailed till they pay up).

4) Investigate your state's telemarketing laws and see if there's even MORE stuff you can use against them. (In Kentucky, for instance, there are actual CRIMINAL penalties for violating the laws--we also have stricter time-of-day requirements (no calls before 10 am), a statewide "do-not-call" list maintained by the Attorney-General that uses "asterisked-numbers" listed in the phone book, and it is illegal to telemarket using a recording (you MUST speak to a live human within five seconds of the call, or they just broke Kentucky law).) Check with your Attorney-General's office, or look under your state's name and "consumer protection".

5) There are some phone services very useful in avoiding telemarketers (and in some cases, tracing just WHERE they got your name). Availability varies from state to state--check with your telco. Among them:

Having your phone listing under an obviously false pseudonym (Joe Dredd, Fred Flintstone, George Jetson, etc.)

Unpublished numbers--more expensive but invaluable in not only avoiding a lot of telemarketing calls but also in tracing the sellers of numbers--some telemarketers actually buy their number lists from the phone company. (It is a good idea in general to explicitly inform the phone company that you want on their do-not-call list and you want your name removed from all lists they sell to other parties.)

Various Caller ID packages such as Anonymous Call Block (in some areas it DOES block telemarketers--in Kentucky, for instance, they have to provide a number on Caller ID by law), Unknown Number Verification (dial a number before you can talk to the person), etc.

In some states, like Florida and Kentucky, there are statewide do-not-call lists. Call your telco or Attorney-General's office for more info.

6) Junkbuster's Telemarketer's Script is invaluable for documenting telemarketing calls (among other things, it lists the questions you need to ask if you want to "make money fast" from telemarketers if/when they misbehave ;). For that matter, the entire telemarketing section is invaluable IMHO. (A wee note--I'm not entirely unbiased. I've had very good results, even at my old place, with their tips--I happen to be the client they're quoting. ;) This was at a residence that'd get 4-10 telemarketing calls a DAY, mind--getting them whittled to one or two a week was a major accomplishment, one done largely through Junkbuster's tips. Oh, and BTW, their script IS GPL'd--you can tweak it to your liking (to include state laws, etc.) as long as you give 'em credit.)

7) There are actual devices, such as one sold by Public Citizen, that basically have a button one can press to automagically give the "add my number to your do not call list" spiel. (By Grud, they use machines like predictive dialers--why shouldn't you? ;) Most of these are around $30 US or so--links here (for Phone Butler) or here (for Phone Filter. There are several devices of this type around, some even being sold at stores like Service Merchandise and Sears--shop around.

8) If you've got Winblows (or Wine--I see no real reason why it couldn't work unde Wine) you might take a look at Engima, which is a nice little proggie to let you fill out the script on computer. (There is a Mac version linked from the site; I see no reason why a Linux version couldn't possibly be developed somehow.)

9) The ultimate in deterrance of telemarketers (at least if you've got ADSL or cable-modem service) is probably doing away with the landline and getting a cell phone. Telemarketing calls to cell phones are illegal in the US, and most areas give cell phones their own exchanges so that telemarketers can filter them out.

Again--these are just tactics (well, besides 7-9; I run Linux, like the pleasure of bitching out the telemarketers myself, and neither Insight@Home nor Hellsouth ADSL are much of options--I'm waiting for more competition in Louisville's ADSL market because I can get it cheaper than through Hellsouth) I've used, and quite successfully--if you start these at the moment you get a phone line, and adopt a "zero tolerance" policy towards telemarketers, you CAN eventually wipe out telemarketing calls from your lines altogether. (No, I am not making this up. On my (unpublished, Caller-ID-enabled, anon-call-blocked, statewide-do-not-call-listed, with-me-leading-the-war-on-telemarketers on the other end armed with Junkbusters script in hand should they get through THAT flotilla of "leave me alone" deterrance) I've actually succeeded in making it where I don't get telemarketing calls. It helps a lot that Kentucky does have additional laws; it also helps that the numbers are unpublished (they can't even get them through Directory Assistance--the only way they get them is if Hellsouth sells the numbers) and the three companies that have had the audacity to telemarket these numbers in the year I've had them got it made COMPLETELY plain that I do not want calls, EVER, and I entirely mean to clue-by-four them into submission should they ever forget that. ;) It IS possible to live free from Telemarketing Hell, though. (One must sometimes be a bitch, yes. Sometimes bitchiness is necessary. Most get the point with just 1), though. The later steps are for if they have proven themselves Naughty, like Chemlawn or the company mickonline apparently worked for. ;)

Re:We already have laws against phone harrassment

[Sethb]

Right, but the problem is that the harassment has already taken place when you receive the FIRST phone call. It should be an "opt-in" situation rather than an "opt-out" procedure.

The other problem is that I have two roomies. I can't ask for their names to be removed legally, so I get stuck receiving the same phone call from the same company 15 times until they do reach my roomie. Sure, I could claim to be him, and ask that they stop calling, etc. but I'm sure that I'd do that only to find it was someone calling to offer him a job or somesuch, and I'd look like an ass. :)

For the last week, I have had a new service from US Worst, er West, that forces anyone who has their caller ID information blocked to speak their name and push a button. Then my phone rings with a distinctive ring, and I hear their name, and can opt to take the call or not. You can also put 25 numbers on a list to let through, if your parents have an unlisted number, etc.

The result? We've gotten only one telemarketing call in the last week, and that was from the University that I work asking my roomie to donate to the senior class project. They got through because the caller ID said "University of Northern Iowa". This is a DRAMATIC decrease from what was three calls per day before getting the service.

I don't work for US West, or hold any stock or anything stupid like that, and this is kind of pricey at $10 a month, but that includes caller ID service too, which is nice if you don't have it already. Since most of the telemarketers have automatically dialed phones, they can't get through the speak your name and push a button ordeal to reach us, which is just fine with me.
---

SPAM traps.

[Poe]

I like the idea of SPAMtraps. Leaving an email address on a web page (and nowhere else) with explicit instructions that the use of this email address costs the sender $500. When you receive email on that account file a claim in small claims court. Either the spammer will have to defend themselves, or they will have to give you money. Both of these cost the spammer money and discourage spamming.

It will be hard to ban without becoming a burdon.

[Lord Kano]

Once, when I had Jury duty I went to McDonalds for breakfast. While I was there I saw a man standing at the pay phone with a moderate sized day planner looking device. He speed dialed number after number while I waited for my McMuffins and as I ate them. The next day he was there again, same time, same place.

Although I couldn't hear him it was apparant that he was a telemarketer. It's my theory that using a pay phone was enough to get *something* to appear on caller ID, and since it was a pay phone all he had to do was move to another location and you'd have a bitch of a time proving that it was the same guy/company calling you again.

How do you pass such a law? How do you enforce it? A cop listening in on every phone call?

What will stop this COLD IN IT'S TRACKS is this. I'll share with you the tools of my one man crusade against telemarketers.

1. NEVER BUY ANYTHING-if they have to spend more money on calls and people to make them than they recoup then they'll stop using that method.

2. Keep them on the phone as long as possible. If you can play with them, get them to go over everything time and time again they have less time to move on to more fertile ground. I have a friend whose personal best is 24 minutes. Mine is closer to 10.

3. As bad as it may sound, don't even give to charities when they use telemarketers. The ends can NOT justify the means, ever, even if they're the good guys.

4. Make them think that you're going to buy something, when they start asking for your information, reverse it on them. Ask for their name, employer, employer's address and employer's telephone number. Say it's because you're afraid of fraud. When they give you this information, write it down.

5. After you get all of their information tell them that you do not wish to ever be contected by them again, remind that that according to US federal law they can be held liable for up to $500 if they call you again.

6. Get Caller ID. When you see "Anonymous Call" or "Out of Area" be prepared to deal with a telemarketer.

I'm not naive, I know that most people will not do these things, but it's not the point if I can do my part I'm happy.

LK

Re:Technical Solutions for Technical Problems

[orpheus]

I note you have an .edu address

I hardly get any spam on my .edu address, neither do my other faculty relatives. And what we get is traceable, as you noted.

I guess they think we're poor students and not worth the effort.

Now, on my .com addresses, I get dozens of spams per day per primary account. And since I own my own domain, I use traceable addresses whenever I think a source might be harvested, so I know who leaked it or where it was harvested from.

Let me tell you, they aren't at all reasonable. I get tons of spam for addresses at my domain that haven't been active for five years or more (I've been around a while), even though those addresses are set to 'bounce' all incoming as undeliverable

I also get "shotgun" mail. That's mail sent to addresses that *never* existed on my site [e.g. they send mail to admin@, charles@, and even porn@ at a long list of domains, hoping someone 'lives' there]

I can only imagine how many 'not even close' (shotgun, dead) spams clog any typical ISP. What do they care? They forge their return address -- it's fire and forget.

__________

Re:Don't-call lists mostly work

[vitaflo]

I don't have caller ID, so I also go by the two second pause rule, however there was one time I hung up on a friend (whoops!).

One problem I have, is that when I move, somehow my phone number is a big target (perhaps cuz it's a new number that's listed by the telco?). The last time I moved I got phone calls every night. After two months they stoped (I don't really get many anymore). I have no idea if this works, but this is what I did:

The telemarketer always askes for a person by name, but ALWAYS screws mine up (how hard is it to pronounce "Gustafson" anyway? Doesn't anyone watch Grumpy Old Men? ;). If a person doesn't know my name, I don't know them, and know it's a marketer. So I just say "Um, you must have the wrong number, nobody by that name lives here". I'm assuming that if they can't match the name to the number, the number in effect is useless and they toss it from their system. Perhaps I'm wrong (or just lucky) but it's seemed to work for me.

-Brent

Re:We already have laws against phone harrassment

[Another MacHack]

US West really has brass ones, selling "privacy products" when their network is at the same time allowing telemarketers to opt out of caller ID broadcast. Sure, you can set your caller ID to "blocked" when you dial out, but not to "unknown". It made a little sense back when Caller ID was less universal, but I see a phone number these days even for out-of-state calls, but for telemarketers it's still "Name Unknown, Number Unknown". US West makes money on both sides; pretty damn sleazy.

DDoS vs. Spam

[tbo]

Spam and DDoS are two fundamentally different activities. DDoS is malicious in intent, and has no constructive purpose. Spam is a form of (very obnoxious) advertising, and does have a legitimate purpose (I'm not saying the ends justify the means, though).

DDoS is AFAIK (IANAL ;-) already illegal. Spam is kinda illegal in some places, but different laws should apply to each.

I personally think that we should just maintain a database of the home phone numbers and addresses of the execs of all companies responsible for spam, and politely call them (once) for each piece of spam they send, asking them to stop. Nothing illegal about that, and they get a taste of their own medicine... Anyone volunteer to collect the data and maintain the database?

We already have laws against phone harrassment

[mlogan]

to the best of my knowledge, if you tell a telemarketer to take your name of their list, they are obligated by law to do so. If they call again after you have told them this, I believe you can take them to small claims court for about $500.

The laws are there, they just aren't being enforced.

Mark

Re:Bug Telemarketeers

[DrEldarion]

My favorite thing to do has always been singing to them... It gives the people who are calling you a bit of a laugh (face it, it's usually not *THEIR* fault you're getting called... they're just people doing their jobs to get a paycheck... it's the companies that hire them that are evil) and they usually get the hint that you don't want to buy anything...

Another thing that works well is saying "No, I would not like to [switch my long distance carrier/buy any magazines/subscribe to a nespaper], but, hey, as long as I have you on the line, would you like to buy (insert object here)?

and if all else fails, I have a modem hooked up to my voice line that I never use... a little "ATA" usually does the trick.

-- Dr. Eldarion --

What reality are you guys in?

[ATKeiper]

(1) "We now have fledgling laws against unsolicited commercial e-mail... [W]e now have protections from SPAM.

What? That's totally wrong, at least in the U.S. No laws have been passed by Congress restricting spam, and the few state laws that have been passed have been thrown out by the courts as violating constitutional free speech protections. Cliff, what protections do you think you have against spam? There are none. Please, I beg you, prove me wrong - log onto Thomas and find a law that protects you from spam.

(2) "Just wondering if the laws under which the U.S. Government is pursuing the DDoS attacks on Yahoo! and Amazon could be applied to telemarketers."

No, the laws being used to "pursue" the DDOS attackers are actually more akin to laws that would apply to grafitti artists or arsonists. They are not laws about "using a public network to bother end users."

As others have noted here, the technology is improving (in some areas) to combat telemarketers. And the technology to combat spam is improving, too. But there are bigger worries than these nuisances - and we should be more concerned about more important personal information than our e-mail addresses and our phone numbers.

(3) "Will laws be written to combat such behavior? Can such laws be written?"

No, no and no. "Congress shall make no law," the First Amendment tells us, to abridge the freedom of speech. That first amendment protects lots of things that are odious to many people - including, despite the best efforts of some wrong-headed Members of Congress, flag burning.

Imagine that a law is written preventing unsolicited commercial calls. What happens if I accidentally dial your phone number in an attempt to complete a solicited commercial call - can you prosecute me? What other forms of communication should be regulated next? Perhaps TV ads, for destroying your tranquility and peace of mind by letting commercialism interfere with your entertainment?

There are already strict laws regulating what you can say and spend in political campaigns. There are already strict laws in some areas against billboards. But how far do you want to go to abridge others' right to communicate - all in the name of avoiding a nuisance?

A. Keiper
The Center for the Study of Technology and Society
Washington, D.C.

Re:An idea I had

[crow]

You can already do that, but you have to do it yourself.

Telemarketers use computers that detect answering machines (based on tape hiss and such). If you had a phone that put out such noise for the first second or so, telemarketing calls would simply hang up.

Blocked Caller ID's

[marko_ramius]

In my area (Chicago) the telco is offering a new(ish) service where any caller who's phone number is NOT presented by caller id is asked to introduce themselves via a short recording. THEN your phone rings and you hear the recording. You are then given the option (via touch tone keys) to accept the call, reject the call, or reject the call informing the caller you don't want to hear from them again (to be used in the case of a telemarketer).

SS7

[Mr. Slippery]

Does the Plain Old Telephone System have the installed equipment to combat telemarketers?

Yes. This is not your father's POTS.

I know that you can trace a call, but how fast can that be done?

Instantly. In fact, they don't really trace calls anymore, all the information come in with the call setup request.

On the Internet, you have IP's that may or may not be spoofed, but unless you pay a premium for callerID, you don't have that luxury with telephone.

You can't get the info without paying the phone company their premium, but they have that info. (At least in almost all parts of the US and Canada. YMMV.) Telephone switches are connected to each other not just with voice lines, but with data lines that form the SS7 (Signaling System 7) packet-switched network. This network carries messages that instruct the switches to set up and tear down voice connections. (Yes, the connections could be dial-up data connections with modems but that doesn't matter at this level.)

The basic idea of SS7 is reasonably simple; it's a protocol to tell telephone switches how to connect voice lines together to make a voice circuit. The implementation, however, is very complicated (because of over a century's worth of cruft) and will hurt your brain. Anyway, one of the message fields in a call setup is the telephone number that originated the call.

If you pay the telephone company for Caller ID, they'll send you that info modulated onto the ring signal (unless the caller has requested Caller ID blocking); or if you dial a certain code (*57? I forget) immediately after a harassing call they'll record the number and pass it on to the police. People with toll-free numbers also get a list of the calling numbers.

The "keep them on the line so we can trace the call" bit you see on cop shows predates the use of computer-controlled digital switches. Forget about it. The call is "traced" before the it is even connected.

The two-second turnover time.

[devphil]

Another very effective technique keys on the fact that it's a computer that's actually doing the calling. If your telephone picks up and starts talking constantly, then the computer knows it has an answering machine and disconnects.

But if your telephone picks up, says something brief ("Hello?") and waits, then the computer knows it has reached a victi^H^H^H^H^Hhuman, and transfers the line over to a human telemarketer. The time it waits for silence plus the transfer time is just over two seconds.

So pick up your phone, say hello, and if you don't get an answer in two seconds, hang up. I've been doing this for months and have never had any complaints from friends about accidentally hanging up on them -- two seconds in which to respond is a lot longer than it sounds. Every human-to-human call I've ever had has started off within that window of time.

Is this rude to the telemarketers? Fuck 'em; they're the ones interrupting my dinner, my shower, my time with friends. (If I /do/ get trapped into talking with one, I am polite enough to say, "No thanks, I'm not interested," etc.)

wrong question

[streetlawyer]

Will laws be written to combat such behavior? Can such laws be written?

Such laws will, eventually be written. Such laws can, trivially, be written. (Soviet Russia had no telemarketing problem)

The question we ought to be asking is: when such laws are written, what other important freedoms will they be used to restrict?

Since slashdot readers are, it would seem, quite keen on sending large volumes of email to people with different views on intellectual property law to themselves, you ought to be wary about this. If Be, Corel, and the Holland, Michigan Public Library system were to have access to such a law, then there could be trouble for all concerned.

How inconvenient is it to deal with telemarketers? How inconvenient is it to live in a society with no free speech?

I'll answer the second question for you; for a lot of the people on slashdot, it would not be inconvenient at all. No regime in history has put people in jail for mindlessly parroting the party line.

The Telemarketing Sales Rule, Dont Call Lists, etc

[Pulsar]

I've been thinking about putting together a page on telemarketing, I've been doing a lot of research and found out a lot of crap lately. I wish I had because there's no way I can post everything here!

A few really crappy things about the telemarketing industry:

1) They hire prisoners. I personally am not making any decision on the merit of this process, so let's not get into a big debate about that. The thing that I take exception to is that they don't really monitor these prisoners well and convicted rapists, etc are using these telemarketing companies to contact minors and attempt to establish a "relationship" of some form with them.

I must admit I have a personal interest in this - my girlfriend (I'm 18, she's 16) was recently conned by a telemarketer (I've since seen the transcript of the conversation - this dude was SLICK...I think even a genius geek like myself might've fallen for it) who managed to get her name from her...he then used the data the telemarketing company gave him to write her a letter. Turns out this fellah is a convicted felon in the Utah State Pen...and this wasn't exactly a "Hi, how ya doin`, my name's Bob" sort of letter. Her mom saw it and freaked and has since contacted the Utah State Prison people...they've been really helpful, but the company that hires these prisoners, Sandstar (Who happens to run http://www.familyfilms.com of all sites!) has basically said "We're terribly sorry" and then continued business as usual - and this kind of stuff happens OFTEN. ABC News in Utah said they were interested in the story, but they wanted to finish up one they were already working on involving the same thing happening to a girl from Utah with another company & prison!

2) This is the part that really pisses me off. Lots of people have posted about the "do not call lists" - this is a part of the Telemarketing Sales Rule (Which the FTC is currently reviewing - check http://www.ftc.gov/opa/2000/02/tsr.htm - they ARE accepting public comments via email but only until Thursday April 27th, 2000). The TSR means well but it's NOT WORKING. Try bringing up charges in a small claims court against a company for violating the TSR by calling you after you were asked to be placed on the do not call list. These companies disappear, change names, go under, merge, etc so often that by the time the case comes up, you have no hope of even getting the 500$. Plus they often use delaying tactics because by law after 24 months they can purge their records.

The telemarketing industry is VERY screwed up. I have already put together a 10 page analysis of this all and the Telemarketing Sales Rule and all the problems with it but that might be a bit excessive to post here.

OT: Anyone else noticed that is dying? I haven't seen that used much at all lately...it's just so much more versitile and less AOL-ish than :)

Anywayz, I've posted my comment at:
http://www.galahad.cx/FTCComment.html
and the original message her mother sent out asking people to be wary of this practice at:
http://www.galahad.cx/OriginalMessage.txt
Please read them and feel free to email me about some of the efforts I'm organizing to get the Telemarketing Sales Rule patched up so that this and many other practices will at least be regulated. Or even email the FTC as detailed at http://www.ftc.gov/opa/2000/02/tsr.htm with your comments sometime before April 27th - we can use all the help we can get. And the Telemarketing Sales Rule covers ALL aspects of telemarketing, so feel free to comment on anything and everything about it on your mind, just please don't flame them too much.

Oh, and galahad.cx is my little 486 Linux box on a cable modem, so it might be kinda slow to respond at times. Sorry!

Opt-in marketing only

[crow]

Why not ban unsolicited commercial direct marketing? What would happen?

Well, the US Post Office would get an exemption on the grounds that junk mail subsidises other mail (or at least it should; I'm not sure if it's really not the other way around).

For phone, fax, and email direct marketing, a new business would be created. Consumers would get paid to opt-in. You could fill out a marketing demographic survey, and then you would get a credit on your phone bill paid for by the direct marketers who called you.

With opt-in systems, consumers get paid for putting up with advertising. Those who don't want the advertising pay their own way. This is already happening with ISPs. This is also how TV works (you can get free TV with ads, or premium/rental services without).

getting rid of telemarketers

[palerider]

actually, it's pretty easy. do not hang up, do not yell, do not curse... very nicely say "please put this number on your company wide 'do not call' list". http://www.junkbusters.com/ht/en/telemarketing.htm l for a full explanation it works..