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Appeals Court OKs FTC's Do-Not-Call List
GTRacer writes "The USA Today website just posted a report that the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals (Denver) has upheld the FTC's national Do Not Call registry. In their decision, the Court found the list to be 'a valid commercial speech regulation...without burdening an excessive amount of speech.' The telemarketers had challenged the constitutionality of blocking commercial free speech while allowing charities and select others to continue phone solicitation. Interestingly enough, 'Officials in the telemarketing industry did not immediately return calls seeking comment.' Isn't it now obvious these people have a double-standard when it comes to reaching out and touching someone?" The court's decision is available to read.
"Companies can telemarket to anyone who has bought, leased or rented something from them within the last 18 months, or to anyone who has inquired about or applied for something with them within the last three months.
It also exempts long-distance phone companies and airlines; banks and credit unions; and insurance companies operating under state regulation.
You could drive a truck full of mailing lists through that loophole. I am sure they will come up with something....
Happy Trails!
Erick
http://www.busyweather.com/
"without burdening an excessive amount of speech"? How about, "an excessive burdening of free speech"?
Must have been one of those "C" average appointments I keep hearing about.
'Officials in the telemarketing industry did not immediately return calls seeking comment.'
Yeah, that's a hoot, but rest assured, their operators aren't exactly standing by on this one, they're probably lobbying like all get out.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Wooooo hooooo! Chalk one up for the little guy. Now if I could just get every other 80's fan from calling my phone number (867-5309-eee-ine) I'd be a happy man!
P.S.- no, my name is NOT jenny.
In the future, I would want to not be isolated from my friends in the Space Station.
Even when I pay Qwest to block telemarketers, THEY call me to sell me stuff.
Interestingly enough, 'Officials in the telemarketing industry did not immediately return calls seeking comment.' Isn't it now obvious these people have a double-standard when it comes to reaching out and touching someone?
Where's the double standard? They have yet to challenge the legality of you not picking up your phone.
Looks like somebody in the industry wasn't willing to cough up enough cash to get the decision over turned.
My personal favorite was a call a got a few years ago. A qwest customer service rep. called at dinnertime to sell a new service. The new service in question... blocking telemarketers's calls. I asked her if it would block calls like hers and she told me, "No, you are our customer so we can still call you." I didn't opt for the service.
-
Tech News, Reviews and Tutorials
'Officials in the telemarketing industry did not immediately return calls seeking comment.'
I bet they were just in the middle of dinner, all you have to do is try your call again at 9pm.
"If you think you have things under control, you're not going fast enough." --Mario Andretti
Silent number.
Karma: It's all a bunch of tree-huggin' hippy crap!
'Officials in the telemarketing industry did not immediately return calls seeking comment.'
Telemarketer: We demand free speech!
Reporters: What do you think of this ruling?
Telemarketer: No comment...
Perhaps we should call them over and over again, just to be sure. Around dinner time, and maybe again later.
And all hours of the weekend. Definitely then.
Fairly soon we'll have a Can-Call Act 2004 which allows telemarketers to call anyone as long as they identify themselves (hi, this is Mike) at the beginning of the call, and allows callees to opt-out (hang up the phone).
Rock that crushes, Paper & Scissors that don't matter.
I have always been annoyed at the telemarketing industry's arguments as to why they should be able to do this. They have always maintained that it was free speech. What they fail to realize is that it is free speech that I have to pay for! Sure, I would have a phone anyway, but basically they are wasting my money. If they want to market on the street corner, go right ahead because that truly is free speech (obviously within limits) but when you come into my home on the telephone line I am paying for, then it crosses the line and that is not free speech.
This leads me to another thought. I have always wondered why the telemarketing industry doesn't pay for people's phone lines in return for getting phone spam. ISP's do it, why not here?
No trees were harmed in the composition of this; however, numerous electrons were inconvenienced.
It is refreshing to see the Courts stepping forward to reassert the legal precedent that free speach does not equal unlimited commercial speach. With the continuing growth of political influence of coporations both in the U.S. and world wide and the increasing rights granted to the these coporate entities, a clear delinitation of the the rights of individuals (as guaranteed by the Constitution) vs. the rights that have been accorded to corporations (largely as a result of campaign contributions ... giving rise to the related debate of does $ = speach in the political arena)is certainly called for. Despite the cat calls of the much of the right wing of american politics decrying the "black robed tyranny" of the american judiciary, I for one am glad to see the legal system prtecting the rights of individuals and refusing to water down the rights granted to individuals by affording equal footing to artifical entites such as corporations! Three Cheers for the proletariot! ;)
If music be the food of love, play on...
Why can't an entrepreneur come up with a phone system that works against telemarketers, perhaps at a slight fee to the users of the system? I've been using a cell phone for quite some time, and do not get telemarketers calling me. Is it because I have legal recourse because it's costing me money? How about a similar land-line system? Why do I need my government to step in and babysit this problem, rather than letting the providers and consumers duke it out? I don't recall ad-free telephones being some sort of fundamental human right. How about turning off the phone at dinner time? Are there no commercial problems that can be solved anymore without the government?
Either the DNC lists are working or my phone has been out of order for a while. I'd as a friend to call and check but I only know virtual people.
Will any of these "laws" work? By the look of all these Anti-Spam efforts, nothing seems to work, so how does this differ?
Rock that crushes, Paper & Scissors that don't matter.
I was really pulling for this judgement to be held up. My reasoning, if the law had been shot down, due to the loopholes the polticians left themselves, then maybe they would have drafted a law which included themselves in it. On the other hand, they may have just tried to sweep the whole issue under the rug and forget about it, so I guess I'll just be happy with the half win we got.
Necessity is the mother of invention.
Laziness is the father.
They should be GLAD to have people block their calls, because the people blocking their calls are (probably with some exceptions) the people who aren't going to buy anything from them. It eliminates wasted phone time. Now they should rejoice that they can cut costs by focusing on the few people who actually WILL buy from them, probably just to talk to another human being (that is, if it's not an automated system).
Esoteric reference.
Can someone explain why the telemarketers are fighting this with everything at their disposal, when this list actually helps them? By excluding the numbers of people that are not interested in receiving telemarketing solicitations, it increases the likelihood that a particular call is to someone who is willing to buy. The DNC list also has other benefits that have not been foreseen by the telemarketers. For example, telephone numbers for fax machines and modems can be placed on this list so that telemarketers don't waste their time calling them.
The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing. - Edmund Burke
Define telemarketing calls. What I think will happen is companies will adapt with something to obscure the dubious title of telemarketing companies. Think about it for a second... So company X cannot call you soliciting products, but a charity can still call you. So now using some lax LLC laws, a telemarketer can reinvent itself as some form of charity Company X charity... Sure they can pitch something honest sounding but let's take a look at namebranding for a second...
charity: "Good day sir, we're with the Microsoft Save the World foundation..."
Sure it sounds dumb, but I'm sure telemarketers will find a way around this. By the way no mention of how this includes those annoying companies calling you to do independent studies, surveys, etc. At least from what I saw on the page.
Oh well, it will be a matter of time (likely after November) where an anonymous plane mysteriously drops a bag of cash on someone politicians desk, and these laws are re-argued and reverse. Just like the Public Utility Holding Company Act, Federal Power Act, and Federal Communications Act. All down the tubes.
MoFscker
As a consultant for a large mortgage bank, I can assure you banks are not exempt.
This fact helped me convince upper management that outbound campaigns were a cost prohibitive idea.
Marketer: Hi we are a nonprofit agency.
Guy at home: Sorry, I am on the do-no-call list
Marketer: Yes, but we have an exceptional product which you might be interested in, in exchange for your donation.
Guy at home: How the hell can you be nonprofit and sell shit at the same time?
...to get these fools who think they have a "right" to market to everyone to shut the hell up. A lot of us are sick of everything being done for profit at the expense of our own quality of life. Wouldn't it be nice if you could open your inbox, look in your mailbox, answer your phone or door, and know that there wouldn't be someone trying to sell you useless crap that you aren't interested in on the other end? How novel an idea. And then on top of all of this we get other assholes coming in trying to make money off of filtering out what we don't want disrupting us. (Privacy Manager from the phone company, or move to an ISP that has spam filtering even if they are more expensive or have other limitations you don't want) So you have to PAY to keep people from trying to sell you stuff? Has it really come to that?
This is not what the founding fathers had in mind. The America we are living in has been co-opted by people infected with a severe mental problem. That problem is the idea that you can't be "successful" unless you make more money than everyone else. When did we start encouraging this kind of thing? And Why? I suppose this is what we deserve for being a culture that worships the dollar. I'm sorry, but I'd like to be excommunicated right now. I don't want to have anything to do with people who measure their value in net worth. Instead I want to be part of a culture that that discourages stupidity. One where being able to "kick ass" or "rule" is of no value. I want to be part of a culture that realizes that if life is to be fair, we have to educate everyone and address each individual case as a society. I want to be in a culture where education is not K-12, but age four - death.
But I'm getting ahead of myself. My main point is that the DNC list wouldn't be neccessary if we hadn't fostered the ills of competetive personalities and avarice. If there wasn't a drive in our society to make the most money regardless of how good or poor your product is, this wouldn't be a problem. It wouldn't be a problem if, as a culture, we DIDN'T buy the crap that is sold via telemarketing and spam and direct mail. It especially wouldn't be a problem if instead we encouraged companies to make GOOD products and then rest on the quality of their product to sell them. After all, isn't that what competition and free market is really all about? The cream rising to the top so to speak?
I have no problem with people wanting to sell things as long as they realize it's not a right, it's a privelege. And, as the consumer, it's my right to decide on my own if the product is right for me... or even useful in any way. Sorry, but even if I was bald, I don't think I'd be buying spray on hair. It just doesn't seem like a good idea.
Un-news
My state's Do-Not-Call List has kept my phone blissfully silent for the last year or so. But the various DNC List laws have several loopholes. Perhaps the worst is the political campaign loophole. Worse yet, many of those campaigns are using automated responders which simply play a recording if you (or your answering machine) answers. Our primary is today, over the last three days I've gotten a half dozen unwelcome political calls and a dozen hung up calls that I can only guess are predictive dialers. For a phone that normally rings one a week this was a huge irritation. At least they haven't started calling my cell phone (yet).
Search 2010 Gen Con events
With all those pesky telemarketers off your phone line, there's no excuse for you to miss those solicitations from .
Or [NO CARRIER]
Karma: Bad (mostly due to all those "In Soviet Russia" jokes)
I work for an outsourced Telemarketing company and i can tell you the DNC lists are NO fun at all to manage!
And now that its got wide coverage , everyone we call wants to be or has applied to be on the FTC's list.All this is besides the numerous state lists that are maintained by all the states.
Lord of the Binges.
we can expect a Do-Not-Slashdot list to follow?
I don't even have a landline phone anymore, except at my business. Caller ID helps restrict telemarketers fairly well there.
I use my cell phone as my primary personal phone, and telemarketing companies are not allowed to call it because it would place the call cost burden on me. Situation solved.
On the other hand, you don't own your phone number. Most (if not all) phone companies offer a low cost service to blocking unknown callers.
Our Constitution is pretty firm on what Congress has the power to do on a federal level, and I can not see how Congress has the power to control who can call you and who can't. If someone is a burden, find one of the many solutions that already exist, rather than placing yet another law on the books that really helps no one and harms many.
Personally, I used to like telemarketing calls. It was a fun way to waste away 5 or 10 minutes harassing them back with numerous oddball questions.
I don't get spam anymore thanks to filters, and I don't get telemarketing phone calls anymore thanks to my cell phone.
One example of this already:
In our local shopping mall there is a shiny new car parked in the walkway. Next to it is a box with a pile of "entry forms" on the top of it, enticing people to enter to win a new car, or a pile of cash or whatever.
When you read the fine print on the back of the card, you find that by filling out the card, you are giving them and anyone they feel like sharing it with permission to contact you via phone or mail.
I just wonder what would happen if someone filled out one of these for me (being on the Do Not Call list) without my knowledge or permission, and they contacted me. Hmm...
You probably shouldn't click this.
This means my line will be free for those calls from [insert-name-of-political-party-here].
Officials in the telemarketing industry did not immediately return calls seeking comment. Not suprising, considering they were all very busy looking for new jobs...
"Freedom means freedom for everybody" -- Dick Cheney
Wait, my government went against a bussiness interest for the sake of the people?
They did a good thing?
I take back some of the bad things I have said about them. Now if only they could continue this trend... think about it... RIAA ruled unconstitutional, M$ seperated into many different companies, forced to develop OSS...
I registered on the UK's do not call list (a list that's not exactly advertised)
http://www.tpsonline.org.uk
I was totally fed up with the weekly telesales calls.
I registered in September 2002. I've had the letter on my desk ever since, ready to complain.
It was not until today (nice synchronicity) that I got my first sales call.
The sales drone thought I was pretty interested in the call, asking for their address and telephone number and the exact nature of the 'wonderful special offer'. Of course, what I was doing was getting the drone to tell me the details required to fill in the online complaint form.
She sounded genuinely shocked when I said "Thank you, I feel it is only fair to inform you that you are in breach of the Telecommunications (Data Protection & Privacy) Regulations 1999 and as such have just been reported to the TPS".
hehe well worth the wait
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
Ring ring ring who's there?
opted out, why a call this evening?
Mexico, you have phone too
Begins NOW!
;-)
No..now!
Quack, quack.
It is great that the registry was upheld, it will be more of a burden on telemarketers regardless of the loopholes. This isn't going to be over though yet I am sure. I hope the Supreme Court is smart enough to shoot down any appeal of this decision though when it reaches them.
Don't think that the telemarketters don't know their own business.
I don't see how spam or telemarketing is a free speech issue any more then say, making a political speech with very loud speakers, in the middle of the night, while people are trying to sleep.
By excluding the numbers of people that are not interested in receiving telemarketing solicitations, it increases the likelihood that a particular call is to someone who is willing to buy.
They don't care much about targeting certian persons. Like spammers, they just throw as much crap out there as possible to get a greater return.
For example, telephone numbers for fax machines and modems can be placed on this list so that telemarketers don't waste their time calling them.
Telemarketers almost exclusively use powerful automated dialing systems that quickly weed out bad numbers, fax machines, etc.
One bad monkey spoils the whole barrel.
Aussies can sign up at the Australian Direct Marketing Association. The form is here and covers email, snail mail, SMS, as well as telephone. I have noticed a decrease in telephone spamming since joining up.
You can also go to yourprivacy.com.au and fill out a form to protect your information being farmed from electorals rolls etc. Right here in fact. The same website has a telecommunications do not call form (that doesn't seem to include snail mail).
I think that you have something confused here telemarketing people. You see individuals in this country, and the world over have rights. A corporation or commercial entity does not. No where in the constitution does it give companies the right to free speech, so shut up, get a clue, and pretenting you have rights that never did have.
Sera.
Slashdot, where armchair scientists get shouted down and armchair theologians get modded up.
Apparently you all are for big, bloated, ineffecient government?
My Linux Command of the Day site : LCOD
So that would be 410-867-5309?
A fool and his (or her) money are soon parted. This is a fundamental truth, no matter how many laws are passed.
And it has been used to stealth market junk long before it was used to sell candidates: push polling
As much as I am annoyed by telemarketing, spam and all sort of other unsolicited products/services, I am dubious about this. I'm all for the Do-not-call list, but in this case telemarketers do have a point. Why allow charities and not them? The only reason so few people are complaining (even here on /.) is that most people are annoyed by telemarketing. If this was about a more neutral service, there would be serious complaints.
A better approach would be a do-not-call list with options: 1 option for "do not call me at all", and another option with "do not call me, but still allow charities", or something in this matter. This would give power to individual consumer, and remove any validity from telemarketers complaints.
The purpose of life is to find the purpose of life.
Ummm...the right wing wanted this just as bad as the left. The only people who did not want this law were telemarketers.
I don't see how you can claim a law that was so popular on both sides of the fence as some sort of victory for one side or another. The fact is, the right wing likes judges just fine -- when they have problems with a judge, their issue is that the judge may have overstepped his bounds (using interpretation of a case as legislation). They're elected for life (so politics won't affect their performance) because their domain is the interpretation of the existing laws, not the passing of new ones.
In a perfect world, judges would be selected based on how well they can understand the law, but since this is not one of those, fights between Dems and Reps over how conservative or liberal a judge is keeps many judges from being appointed in a timely manner.
There's no sig like this sig anywhere near this sig, so this must be the sig.
Has a proper place, IHMO, and this is part of it.
Why should I have to buy something to keep them from calling me? How about if I create something to burn commercials into your retinas? Should the govt get involved, or does someone have to invent something to keep this from happening?
If it is up to providers and consumers to duke it out, then it becomes an arms race, they figure a better way to intrude, and you have to buy something else again to have some privacy.
emt 377 emt 4
Why it is that non-profits and political campaigns are exempt in the first place?
... I don't want you to call, email, or mail me! Leave me the f*** alone! Don't call me; I'll call you. kthxbye.
My reaction when reading this blurb is, "Damn right, it's unfair -- ban them, too!"
I don't care if you're representing Joe Blow Lightbulbs Inc. or Mary Sue Parapalegic Midgit Orphans.org
-monique
We should all call the American Telemarketers Association (317-816-9336) to make sure they got the word.
I am exercising my right to free speech to inform you that "speach" is not a word.
This has been a friendly public service announcement brought to you by the spelling nazis.
Are people in the rest of the world this stupid or is it only Americans?
Obviously telemarketing turns up enough fools to make it profitable. That's a scary thought, isn't it?
Be happy. Nothing else matters.
Why do you hate America so much?
All this national DNC list buisness is an epilogue. The real meat-and-potatoes is in a 1991 law making all but the most carefully scripted and trained telemarketing campaigns illegal (only about 2% of calls I received last year could be considered legal). Best of all the law provides a minimum of $500 per call to the consumer that falls victim.
Don't believe me? Google for Telephone Consumer protection Act, or TCPA, you will find dozens of how-to sites, and even some lists of cases sucessfully collected. (I'm still working on my site, someday appearing at noroutetohost.net) Cases can be filed in small claims for usually less than $50 (which is added to the judgment anyway), and by filling out a simple one-page form.
I have already deposited $4,500 and am in the process of collecting $9,000 more, for what I can't imagine is more than about 40 hours of research/filing/court appearances total ( > $100/hour!). You might be suprised how satisfying it is to watch a telemarketer cut you a check right in the courtroom...
These calls are illegal, but they make them anyway, because the law is written so that only the consumer with the phone can take any action to enforce the law (e.g. collect money), and almost no consumers do. If you don't like these kinds of calls you might consider changing that.
Usage: fortune -P [-f] -a [xsz] Q: file [rKe9] -v6[+] file1
They must have all just sat down to dinner. Some people (ahem) just call at the most inconvenient of times.
They say the first thing to go is your penis. Well, it's either that or your brain. I forget which...
I dont even see why this was all held up, judging by how many people were on the list i think its obvious to say THE PEOPLE who are suppose to make decisions in this country wanted it to happen. Ive never met a single person who said they didnt want to be on the list, lets see...get tons of phone calls from people you dont wanna talk to about products you dont want, or not...decisions decisions!
You, sir, to put it simply, are a fool.
Before the Do Not Call list I got phone calls at all hours from telemarketers. Dinner time not excluded. (They at least had the sense to not call in the middle of the night.)
Should I then keep my phone turned off all the time?
I pay for the phone service for my own reasons and purposes. I do not pay for it for someone else to use to sell me something.
You say: "I don't recall ad-free telephones being some sort of fundamental human right."
I don't recall telemarketing being a fundamental human right either and for you to imply that telemarketers have more right to use my phone line than I have to say they should not seems to me shortsighted, ignorant and generally pretty damn stupid. Come to think of it you are probably an MBA. And what kind of twisted logic allows you to claim that their right to profit somehow trumps my right to privacy?
Tell you what. Post your phone number here. I have some used books I'd like to sell. Be glad to call you about them.
</rant>
Sorry for the rant, but I feel so much better now.
I agree it should have been passed, but it had little to do with popular support. The judiciary system is separate from the legislative one. Majority rule does not apply as it does in Congress. However I won't doubt that the public support didn't have any influence.
Corporations: your universal scapegoat for all society's ills.
I don't know about the rest of you, but I've been getting cold calls (ie., unsolicited calls from companies I don't see how I could have done business with) for discounted vacations or for giving me an invitation to a meeting for buying time share condos.
It's really tiring to go home at the end of the day having dealt with your email spam, to get human spam. Yeah, maybe it puts food on the marketdroid's table, but I already put my time in for the day, and the rest of my time is time for my family, to heck with everyone else. If my political representatives cannot vote accordingly, I will vote them out.
To-do List: Receive telemarketing call during a tornado warning. Check.
$1,000 windows... jesus... someone should sign her up for the 'do not breed' list.
Apparently the windows were made out of ice, too. Something to think about.
'Officials in the telemarketing industry did not immediately return calls seeking comment.'
This little sentence is not a key part of the story -- it is a common phrase used in journalism (I have been a reporter for 2 newspapers) to basically mean, "We left a message at the last minute on their machine but they didn't call back before my deadline" but actually sounds like it's the source's fault.
thehomeland(.org)
The three well-known tones have the frequencies 985.2 Hz, 1370.6 Hz, and 1776.7 Hz.
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum sonatur.
Man, with all this Primary crap, the Democratic National Committee is definately calling too many people. I'm glad they finally have a list of people to call, and I'm glad I'm not on it!
ReclaimDemocracy.org
Speach wants to be frea!
Quote
You could drive a truck full of mailing lists through that loophole. I am sure they will come up with something....
I don't get it, everytime there is a thread about the do-not-call list, there are a lot of replies moaning about the exemptions to the list. I don't like the exemptions either, but the fucking list works! Isn't that all that matters? Since my state(Mass)started their do-not-call list last April, my telemarketing calls have gone from several every day to an average of 1 a month over the last 10 months. That is a HUGE inprovement.
The reason charities and politicians are exempted is because it would have made it too easy for a court to strike down the whole law. Instead of crying about the exemptions, look at the RESULTS of the law and do what I do for any group that uses the loopholes to call me. Any politician who calls me can look forward to my voting against them every chance I get for the rest of my life: and I even vote in every primary! Any charity that calls me despite the fact that I am on the do-not call list will be subjected to a LIFETIME BOYCOTT of that charity. I have signed up for my state do-not-call list and the federal do-not-call list and anyone who calls me despite the fact that I have made it quite clear that I don't want to be called deserves what they get.
"Brevity is the soul of wit" said Shakespeare. I say "Wank!" Thus I win. - The League Against Tedium
'Officials in the telemarketing industry did not immediately return calls seeking comment.'
I thought they only have outgoing call capability...whenever I ask to call them back when I'm interested...they tell me that I can't.
WTF? Over?
I live in Montreal, Canada. There are more telemarketing operations here than anywhere else in the world. Some of my friends work for these places. I've even had to do the paid training for a few of them while I was in school... They don't now, and never will respect this no call registry law.
Most of these firms are scams that operate by not giving out any real information about the company. They have a "toll free customer service line" that rings and rings, and they instruct their reps to hang up on anyone who asks questions and sounds smart enough to do something. If anything, this do not call registry makes their lives easier. When they're on the phone with someone who will threaten them with the do not call registry, they know they should not bother finishing their script and just hang up on them so they can go to the next call. They mainly target old people and very young people who haven't had enough experience to avoid scams. These targets are the ones who do not know that this call they're taking is going to end up in a huge headache.
I agree. On this particular issue both the political left and right were united in supporting controlling telemarketing because telemarketing is so unpopular with the majority of the public.
Many on the political right, however, have on many occasions objected strenuously to the differentiation between commercial speech and the speech of individuals. The objection is even more vociferous when it comes to political donations, particularly from corporate doners. The argument of money equals speach has long been a rallying cry of the political right, for fairly obvious reasons.
Moreover, much of the political right has also made continuous hay of "judicial activism" on the part of the Courts. It is worth noting that this "judicial activism" war cry only comes out when the result does not fit with their agenda. (Go back and read the the property takings cases authored by Jusices Scalia and Rhenquist in the late '80's. Where was the outcry againt "judicial activism" on the part of the political right when those cases were issued?)
I fear, however, that we're starting to drift off topic. The real point of my original post (despite the political overtones and the tongue-in-cheek proletariat reference) was that there is definitely a benefit to the differentiation between commecial and individual speech and I am glad the pendulum of judicial (and to a lesser extent political) opinion seems to again be swinging towards a position of upholding and even strengthening that deliniation.
If music be the food of love, play on...
In Soviet Russia, Telemarketers call YOU!
Sneakabout is a mysterious figure, having done too much mathematics.
Incomming call turns out to be a telemarketer, charity, cold-call, predictive dialer, my Ex Mother In law, or other such ilk? Smile acidly & hit the button.
A "Communications" Satelite in L.E.O. catches the signal, checks the circuit routing, determines the location of the caller, and promptly spears a nuclear-pumped laser-pulse through that caller's location... Accurate to within +/- 6 inches. Kiss one telemarketer goodbye.
No fuss, no muss, and the "collateral damage" is minimal... (Ok, so the dipshit in the cubal right next to them may get fried, too, but like I care?)
And if it's a purely predictive dialer that hangs up before I get a chance to hit the button, the system traces the still-connected-from-my-end curcuit ANYWAY and increases the power output a thousand fold... Kiss one *building* goodbye.
Now, where's my shiny, red button and Killer ComSat?
By all logic, the DNC list should have been an extraordinarily cheap way to vastly increase telemarketers' efficiency. Get rid of the 1/3 of their "marks" who were most animate about not receiving calls, and call the remaining 2/3. $8000 for the entire country and free for the first 5 area codes.
The problem is that the Federal Telemarketing Rule penalizes their clients, who are now also liable for telemarketers calling people who in the past asked to be left alone. The no identity issue was raised in 1997, on The Telemarketing Scum Page. While 3 states now have requirements that telemarketers identify themselves, the FTC gave up and gave telemarketers their wish and held the clients liable. This also nullifies immunity for off-shore operations.
The reason it's illegal is that most people pay per minute used, and have a limited pool of minutes. If you get 20 telemarketing calls, and your company charges you 1 minute even if you hang up right away, then they are literally costing you money.
I'm not aware of any local phone company that charges for incoming calls or connect time, so the telemarketers can say that the only thing they cost you is time, you can hang up, etc. With cell phones, unlimited plans are very expensive, and most people have a limited pool of time, which means it can be clearly demonstrated how the telemarketers are costing you time AND money.
This is why they're not allowed to call cell phones, not because of plans where you pay an extra charge for incoming calls.