FCC Allows Bells to Sell Your Telephone Usage Data

Devistater writes "Spotted on hardocp. The FCC said in a ruling yesterday that telephone companies can sell your name, who you call, and for how long you talk to anyone who is an "affiliate." No longer is this required to be an opt in marketing approach, now its OPT OUT. Sounds like spam is coming to the telephone world, and what an egregious breach of privacy. Article on PCWorld has some of the details." There's also a short Reuters story and a good one on ecommercetimes.com.

Comments

Qwest

[jhunsake]

For those who have Qwest, look here.

Voice your complaints!

[sup4hleet]

Chairman Michael K. Powell: mpowell@fcc.gov
Commissioner Kathleen Q. Abernathy: kabernat@fcc.gov
Commissioner Michael J. Copps: mcopps@fcc.gov
Commissioner Kevin J. Martin: kjmweb@fcc.gov

Customer Service Standards:
Send your comments to:OMDCSSTF@fcc.gov

General e-mail should be sent to: FCCINFO@FCC.GOV

Remember: a complaint should be a well thoughtout, polite, disagreement NOT a psychotic rant.

Re:So where do you opt out?

[gilroy]

EPIC's page ( http://www.epic.org/privacy/cpni/) has some info. For Verizon, call (866) 483-9600 and wade through a tedious phone tree (about four minutes, but have your bill handy).

Re:Simple solution...

[mosch]

If you have a few minutes to spare, what's even better is to say 'I'm making an official request for your no-call policy, as I am entitled to by law. I'd like to provide you with all the information neccessary for you to mail me a copy of your no-call policy.'

At this point they may hang up, or get confused and put you on with a supervisor who will know about this and take the information.

Now that they have the information, request to be added to their No-Call, and No-Sell lists. By this point you've cost them a lot of phone time, often with a supervisor, plus they usually actually do mail you the no-call policy, and you get blacklisted for being a pain in the ass who knows the law, thus helping make sure you don't get any more calls.

Don't blame the FCC

[Nintendork]

Blame the US Court of Appeals. They're the ones that instructed the FCC to use an opt-out method.

Taken from Chairman Powell's public statement:
"But we conclude, albeit somewhat reluctantly, that under the court's constitutional analysis, companies may satisfy the somewhat less stringent requirement of giving consumers the chance to "opt-out" of intracompany communications-related use of CPNI.(1)

(1) The court instructed the Commission to consider an opt-out strategy, which the court concluded was "an obvious and substantially less restrictive alternative" to opt-in. U.S. West v. FCC, 182 F.3d 1224, 1238 (10th Cir. 1999), cert. denied 530 U.S. 1213 (2000)"

Contact the Court of Appeals and complain. Also, contact your local representative.

-Lucas

Re:Simple solution...

[Reziac]

A simpler solution: inform the telemarketer in a borderline-irritated voice, "I'm *supposed* to be on your do-not-call list!" They'll about pee themselves apologizing and will hang up posthaste, and once you hit a marketer who is using a master list, you'll suddenly find you get NO more calls.

I did this some 12-13 years ago, and since then I get maybe one or two junk calls a year (including the recorded type).

The majority of telemarketers work from a nationally-circulated master list, so if you get removed from one call center's list, you'll fall off all of their lists. Daily News or any affiliated paper is a good one to have initially remove you, as they do use a master list.