Slashdot Mirror
U.S. National Do-Not-Call Registry is Law
extra88 writes "Bush has signed the
Do-Not-Call Registry into law. The registry will be run by the FTC and funded by fees collected from telemarketers. Telemarketers can be fined up to $11K for calling someone on the list. Politicians, surveys (loophole?) and charities are exempt from using the list. The FCC oversees certain industries (airlines, banks and phone companies) and will have to "buy in" to the registry for it to affect those industries. Slashdot covered this story when the bill went through House of Representatives."
can be found here http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/conline/edcams/donotcall/in dex.html.
[/end whore]
Think outside the... Hey, where'd the friggin' box go?
I do work for a company that does market-research. Read the law - there are reasonably strict restrictions on what counts as charities, surveys, etc. I may be in the minority but I have done focus groups and do reply to some surveys if I'm not otherwise occupied (well, I used to - working for a research company disqualifies me for most of the now). I hardly think that sending a FREE product, gift certificate, etc. as a thank-you makes a survey somehow evil. (I should note, we hardly do any call-out work and on the rare occasions we do we adhere strictly to the allowed hours and other restrictions.)
Now, you want to see a loophole - how about the exemption for anyone with whom you have a "business relationship". Bought a widget from me in the last 18 months - I'm exempt. I called you for product info in the last three months - you can feel free to start calling me whether I'm listed or not. Fortunately even in those cases (and I think with charities as well) you can tell that specific business/charity to stop calling and they must honor it.
Better still, they must start transmitting caller ID info - no more "ID unavailable" and must have a person on the line within 2 seconds of your answer (the telemarketers hate this since they can't cram in as many calls per person per hour with their predictive dialers).
The other giant loophole is that there are a variety of exemptions for financial institutions, airlines and telecom companies but it appears from the FTC web site that this could be just procedural in that they are already regulated by other agencies and it just needs some interagency coordination to bring those into the fold as well. Still, those exemptions bear watching. Perhaps someone more familiar than I am with the laws would care to comment.
~~~~~~~
"You are not remembered for doing what is expected of you." - Atul Chitnis
The provisions for surveys are meant to prevent the government from fighting itself. The government, at various levels, spends billions of dollars per year funding survey research. My employer (the University of Wisconsin) recieves millions each year from the state alone.
If you feel a survey is not of academic nature then the call is illegitimate (per Wisconsin law) and the caller can still be punished. Since Wisconsin's do-not-call list went into effect at the beginning of this year we have recieved phone calls from various areas of the government ensuring our credibility.
From http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/conline/pubs/alerts/dncalrt .htm
7. What about telemarketers calling from overseas? Are they covered? Won't you have difficulty enforcing your national "do not call" registry outside the U.S?
Telemarketers calling U.S. consumers are covered, regardless of where they are calling from. Enforcement outside the U.S. is not as easy as it is at home, but it is not unusual for the FTC to take law enforcement action - and to prevail - against telemarketers calling from outside the U.S. Moreover, if a company within the U.S. solicits sales through an overseas professional telemarketer, that U.S. company is liable for any TSR violations of the telemarketer. Initiating enforcement action against such companies is not a problem for the FTC.