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Telemarketers Sue to Block Do-Not-Call List
chumpieboy writes "A story on Yahoo tells about about the DMA's attempts to stop a national DoNotCall list, essentially claiming that Opt Out is not a viable model for telemarketers. Yet they claim that Opt Out is a viable model for email marketing?"
Where in the Constitution is Freedom of Privacy stated? You may be able to infer it from other amendments but it is not nearly as clearly stated as Freedom of Speech.
The previous poster is clearly in error. "Freedom of speech" is a diversion - this has absolutely nothing to do with free speech.
"Freedom of speech" means "you can say what you want." It does not mean "you can force people to listen to you."
If someone says "I don't want to hear from you", you can't force them to listen by claiming "free speech." Since that is exactly what a DNC list is, the whole "free speech" argument is BS.
Telemarketers will absolutely not hang up the phone just by you saying 'no' politely. A national DNC would mean that those people could make a single phone call, and never have to feel bad about wanting to hang up on a telemarketer.
Even so, the nationwide DNC is a good idea, and I'm even more so for it by seeing that they're against it. IMHO, If your entire business model is based on calling people who don't want you to call, then fuck your business.
Many people would, at this point, compare this to spam, Which would almost work, but telemarketing is 1000x worse than spam to me, for a few reasons:
My personal email address gets 2 spam messages every one to three days. Just, if you have to have your email address posted somewhere, spamproof it a little. I doubt that any of you that refuse to do this go around writing your phone number on public walls...
I work late. I don't get to sleep till around 5am, usually. I don't get woken up to deal with spam 3 hours after i've fallen asleep. I don't deal with spam during dinner. I don't deal with spam while I'm concentrated on a good video game. I don't deal with spam in the middle of sex. It just goes into a small folder in sylpheed and I delete it when i feel like it.
There actually are a lot of spammers who put an "ADV: " at the beginning of their subject line. Another example is repeat spammers- those who email you every week or so letting you know that your website can be listed on the top 300 search engines for some relatively[1] nominal fee.
When you're bored, and you notice an email that says:
Subject: I JUST GOT LOTR:TTT IN HIGH QUALITY!
i just went to http://www.theres-no-lotr-here-only-naked-people.
AND THEY HAD THE NEW LOTR MOVIE! YOU SHOULD GO THERE TOO!
Well, at least I got a chuckle out of it.
Spam really doesn't bother me nearly as much as telemarketing. This nationwide DNC list is a very very good thing.
[1] According to Miss Vanessa Lintner, who sends me this important email every few days, although the prices may be high, it will make me a lot more money by having my site listed on over 6,000 search engines, including specialty ones like where-can-i-find-a-cheap-gay-whore.com or scatsearch.net..
get 0wned. irc.w30wnzj00.com
Think about it, though. I talked to probably an average of 500 people a day. 400 of them were as rude as they probably ever are in their lives. 250 were pissed that I was calling them. 100 yelled at me. 50 tried to be clever and expected to trigger some sort of emotion in me, and 0 did.
By the way, if I was lucky, maybe 3 or so of those 500 would end up with a shiny new Discover Platinum card.
Whale
People who get themselves put on opt-out lists don't like telemarketers. They don't buy from telemarketers. Some of them won't buy from a company that they know engages in telemarketing.
An opt-out list is a list of people who won't buy your product, so you don't have to waste your time selling to them. What's more, it keeps you from reminding people who are sufficiently averse that you telemarket.
And they think an opt-out list would hurt their business?! It can only improve their business!
How mind-boggling.
That's actual wisdom, and that's assuming your business model is tuned to meeting people's needs, not manipulating them into buying something they don't need.
Libertarianism is rich wolves and poor sheep playing gambler's ruin for dinner.
As a consumer I absolutely love Missouri's list.
I *never* want to receive unsolicited calls.
I have *never* purchased anything through an unsolicited call.
The Missouri No Call list SAVES telemarketing companies money because they don't have to waste their time or mine calling me. I pay for my phone service and I should be in control of who is allowed to use it and who isn't allowed.
The MO NO Call list still lets non-profit orgs and existing business relationships through. I don't really want calls from non-profit groups either, but they are fairly rare.
I did have a weird call today, some company called claiming to be a Domain Notification service and they had some information they wanted to fax me because their email system was down. I couldn't get them to tell me their name. She just kept saying, we're a "domain name notification service."
Consequently, Missouri HB228 is trying to create a No Email list. It has flaws in it's present state but we're working on making it beneficial to everyone except spammers.
The man who trades freedom for security does not deserve nor will he ever receive either. - Benjamin Franklin