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Telemarketers to Target Cell Phones
sik puppy writes "According to this article on msnbc, telemarketers may soon be targeting cell phones." The article discusses how some of these will be accidental, but others will be in response to things like the do-not-call registry.
I thought telemarketing to cellphones was illegal for exactly that reason, the same as junk faxes.
This idea won't fly. The reason is simple: money. On landlines it costs nothing to receive a call, so consumers can complain but that's about it as far as the telephone carriers are concerned. Cel phones and SMS are a different story. When a telemarketer calls a cel phone or sends a text message, the phone's owner can point to a line on his bill and say "This unwanted call/message cost me $X.". Now the phone owner has proof of an actual dollar amount to go with his complaint, and he can demand reimbursement. If the phone carrier reimburses, it's going to turn telemarketing into a cost for the carriers and they're going to do something about it. If phone carriers refuse to reimburse, we'll see something like the junk-fax law passed ASAP. One way or another, when the telemarketers start generating provable costs to the recipients of their calls there's going to be a major backlash against the telemarketers.
Telemarketers, take note: if you won't compromise, if you insist that it's either no limits at all or nothing, you may find that the rest of us consider giving you nothing at all a perfectly acceptable outcome. :)