Slashdot Mirror
Canada's Do-Not-Hesitate-To-Call List
An anonymous reader writes "The creation of a do-not-call list in Canada has run into
trouble. Michael Geist reports that the proposal has been effectively destroyed, with exceptions for just about every telemarketer including businesses, political parties, polling companies, and charities. The government committee apparently heard from the marketers but refused to listen to consumer groups."
...to test out the anti-telemarketing counterscript ;-)
People say I'm crazy, I got diamonds on the soles of my shoes...
I would like to thank Canada for creating a place where a lonely person like me can go to have constant human contact via phone calls. I will now be able to live a much fuller life if I move to Canada.
The subject says it all. It could also be a solution: /. the telemarketers
My wife's sketchblog Blob[p]: Gastrono-me
I'm moving to the U.S.!
With pre-emptive slashdotting, the target website is obliterated BEFORE any slashdotter has any chance of seeing it!
In the U.S., the Do Not Call Registry was about as effective as well. The bosses signed up our business phone lines and nothing has really changed. We still get on average of 20-50 solicitation calls a day.
That doesn't sound like much, but for a small mom-n-pop ISP run by 4 guys and a dog with 2 phone lines, it's awful. Fwiw, we're all pretty good at screening calls via Caller ID.
Good luck to our fellow Canadian brethren, whether they've disowned us or not.
do() || do_not();
Canada is a capitalist nation, just like most modern nations. Just because you live in Canada doesn't exempt you from having your "rights" and concerns over-ridden with the more important rights and concerns of revenue making, tax-paying, politician lobbying private industries.
The way I think it works out now is that if you sign on to the Canadian Do-Not-Call list you will only receive calls from businesses, political parties, polling companies, and charities.
Try not. Do or do not, there is no try.
-- Dr. Spock, stardate 2822-3.
That's our Canadian government - always looking out for the little guys. Those much maligned mega marketers, the poorly pictured political parties and poll promulgators, the little lobbyests languishing in the face of previously proposed changes to our country's telecommunications laws.
What ever were we thinking in our attempts to wrest the right to remain "unlisted" and "untapped"?
How dare we expect to have the right to not be disturbed in the midst of our daily ablutions by the ring-ring-ringing of the telephone?
I am (almost) at a loss for words, but I'm certain that if I wait a bit, someone new will call me and try to sell me their own.
Sadly it appears that my government is no longer similar to the American's "of the people, by the people, for the people", but "to the people".
The article is gone, but if the businesses that are exempted are those with a pre-existing relationship with you, that would be the same as the American Do Not Call list.
just do what I did, and get cell plan where you get refund for received calls.
I've almost paid my last months phone bill, just by talking with telemarketers.
You can easily keep them talking for about 30 minutes by asking everything about the product they're selling.
There are no atheists when recovering from tape backup.
Where's the "mom" in the mom-n-pop? If it's just you 4 guys and the dog...
Tired of junk phone calls? Call Industry Minister now
MICHAEL GEIST
In a scene that unfolds in millions of homes each day, dinner is interrupted by an unsolicited telemarketing call. Some Canadians immediately hang up, while others wait patiently for the marketer's speech to conclude. No matter the response, virtually everyone finds the calls invasive, disruptive, time-consuming, and incredibly annoying.
Several years ago, the United States introduced legislation designed to curb unwanted telemarketing calls. A statutory "do not call" list was created allowing individuals to place their phone number on a list that, with limited exceptions, marketers were forbidden from calling. Since failure to abide by the wishes of those listed carries significant penalties, the U.S. approach has proven remarkably successful with more than 90 million numbers now registered.
Having observed the U.S. system with envy, Ottawa's introduction last December of Bill C-37, which creates a Canadian do-not-call list, drew near-universal praise -- even the Canadian Marketing Association welcomed the bill.
The bill established the broad framework necessary for a do-not-call list, including the statutory powers needed to create the list and penalties for non-compliance. The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission, Canada's telecom regulator, was asked to develop the specific details in a public consultation once the bill became law.
Following its introduction, Bill C-37 was referred to the Standing Committee on Industry, Natural Resources, Science and Technology for review. Months later, the amended bill is virtually unrecognizable, as intense lobbying has transformed the do-not-call list into the do-not-hesitate-to-call list.
Rather than leaving the specific exemptions to an open public consultation, the committee introduced several changes to the bill that dramatically reduces its effectiveness. These include exceptions for charities, political parties, polling companies, and businesses with existing business relationships. While it may come as little surprise to find politicians protecting their own ability to make unsolicited telemarketing calls, the inclusion of the existing business relationship exception is particularly damaging as it renders the do-not-call list practically useless.
The existing business relationship provision will allow businesses to contact former customers for up to a year and a half after their last communication or contract (notwithstanding the inclusion of their phone number on the do-not-call list). Moreover, even a simple inquiry will give businesses a six-month window to ignore the presence of the number on the do-not-call list.
It is readily apparent that the avalanche of nightly calls is likely to continue unabated
Canadians may register their phone numbers on the do-not-call list, but it is readily apparent that the avalanche of nightly calls is likely to continue unabated. For example, under the revised rules, if you spend one night in a hotel, the hotel chain can call you for the next 18 months, even if you register your phone number on the do-not-call list. Similarly, if you call a long-distance provider for information about their latest plan, they can call you for the next six months. All of this is in addition to the blanket exception for charitable calls, calls from political parties, and polling company calls seeking participation in surveys.
Supporters of the do-not-hesitate-to-call list argue that the Canadian exceptions mirror those found in the U.S. Although it is true that the U.S. has created some similar exceptions, the Canadian exceptions go much further than their U.S counterparts. For instance, the exception period for a mere inquiry is twice as long in Canada as it is in the U.S.
Moreover, supporters of the amended proposal note that telemarketers will be required to maintain company-specific internal do-not-call lists so Canadians can request no further phone calls on an individual company basi
Just be less polite. If everybody just hangs up on the marketeers once they start talking, it should stop fast enough (no income anymore=exit scheme, onto the next one: Pop-up and pop under adds, exit pages, etc EVIL LAUGH).
The marketeers are usually trying to be persistent by just saying things like: you don't know what I am going to offer.
If telemarketing anoys you, just hang up, do not even say goodbye anymore, you don't know them, you don't owe them, so what do you care.
Sofar my advice to make canadians less polite.
My wife's sketchblog Blob[p]: Gastrono-me
"Telemarketing" == "Phone SPAM"
I suggest you read Slashdot
...it gives the truly twisted an opportunity to counterstrike the telemarketer with a reverse crank call. I've done this for years and extracted some interesting responses on sexual orientation, inclinations, and practices before they know it. Sometimes you're fighting to keep composed and not break down in suffocating laughter.
As far as looking out for the privacy of Canadian citizens however, it does suck.
If my grammar and spelling are off, I am [distracted/tired/careless] (take your pick)
AC is right. Business numbers can be placed on the list, but they are not enforceable.
Also, I bet that as an ISP, you deal with companies who are affiliated with other companies, and can try to use the loophole for existing business relationships -- if they have any sort of business relationship to you, or you've ever called or contacted them, then they can market to you unless you explicitly tell them to only call you on existing business.
Procrastination -- because good things come to those who wait.
I bumped into a guy via a cellphone mailing list, whose company has a dialling product that hangs up if it detects a human at the other end. But if it detects an answerphone, it delivers its advert. You have to wonder about people who actually design something like that, and the client companies that think it's the best way to get the message across. The guy does stuff for IBM, which we certainly filed away for future reference.
Just feed Eliza some random input from an irc channel and pipe its output into ATT&T TTS system and then into the phone for the telemarketer.
Option 2)
And if you are really lucky (and spammed), team up two telemarketers with each other, just as we saw with skype here.
Umm.. I don't want to be called by anyone. This includes political parties, charities (thanks, I already donate hundreds of dollars yearly to local community groups, the Red Cross, and others I deem fit), and I am prefectly capable of finding the best goods/services to fit my needs on my own.
I already know enough about our political system to know that our form of democracy is badly broken. I don't need their "information".
Is it really too much to ask to be left alone?
Lord High Crapflooder The Right Honourable Vlad Craig Esther McDavenpherson III
Destroyer of Mercatur.Net
Don't answer your phone... Mine has been on an answering machine since about 1980. We talk to each other by leaving messages on each other's machines. Keeps the phone bill down too.
Oh well, what the hell...
Procrastination -- because good things come to those who wait.
I'll have you know that in addition to milk and honey, we also have Tim Horton's... Mmm... utopia..
Live forever, or die trying.
Would you like to back that claim up, or are you just repeating the often-debunked urban legend?
I'm wondering how and to who this list is distributed? Hopefully it isn't possible for a businesses/political parties/charities to use this list to get phone numbers and people to call. But since it was originally meant as a list of people not to call I can foresee where such safety mechanisms where not put in place.
How are they benefiting by calling me when I make it clear I don't want to be called? How do they benefit when I continue to not purchase their products or services when they call? This seems like rocket science to the telemarkters but they don't get it.
Who are you to say I or anyone else who refuses to listen to political groups (who are almost always the very special interest groups you sit here and decry) phone calls do not care about politics? Many of us are very active politically and are well educated on the issues.
The uneducated masses do not need special interest group propaganda, whether it is a solitication for votes or an attempt to "educate" (again, LOL) them. This also shuts out minor political parties that cannot afford telemarketing either. The whole idea is retarded anyway. This is what schools are supposed to teach, not special interest groups.
Are you really seriously telling me that telemarketing is nessecary to ensure the "best quality of life"? Are you really telling me that those of us who desire to not hear from telemarketers (its not as if they do not have a MULTITUDE OF OTHER WAYS to advertise their presence) cannot figure out how to spend our money, how to be politically involved (or choose to shut out politics because we think the system is fundamentally broken and cannot be solved within the means of the system), etc?
There are plenty of businesses that cannot afford to telemarket, yet they are sucessful.
Give me a break man.
Lord High Crapflooder The Right Honourable Vlad Craig Esther McDavenpherson III
Destroyer of Mercatur.Net
The posting's misleading, unfortunately, like so many on Slashdot lately.
The proposed bill does not grant an exception to the do-not-call list to all businesses; it grants an exception to businesses that have an *existing* business relationship with you. Still not good, but a random telemarketer won't be allowed to call you if you're not already a customer one way or another.
Michael's article is quite clear in this regard, too. I really wish the Slashdot editors would check submissions for factual accuracy instead of blindly accepting any sensationalist story - Slashdot really seems to be becoming the tabloid news outlet of the internet, which is rather unfortunate.
quidquid latine dictum sit altum videtur.
The way I think it works out now is that if you sign on to the Canadian Do-Not-Call list you will only receive calls from businesses, political parties, polling companies, and charities.
Seriously though, isn't that just true of landlines in general? Has anyone received a useful call on a landline in the past few years, one where the caller would not have called your mobile if they hadn't got through?
If the call is important, someone will pay 50p/min to call my mobile, or they'll call me on my mobile for free as part of their bundled mobile minutes. If they'll only call my landline, the call can't be important.
The solution to telemarketting is to price them out of the market. One way is to waste their time. Another is; don't answer your landline. Just use your mobile. Heck, half the time I don't even have a handset connected to my landline. It just exists to provide ADSL.
Andrew Oakley - www.aoakley.com
I'm being forced to get up and figure out who is calling me. Thats pretty much being forced to me. If people don't want to listen, whats the point?
Your apathy is disturbing. You can indeed make a difference, whether locally or on a state or national level.
Your faith in the democratic process is disturbing. I fundamentally disagree with the concept of a populist government and no matter how I try to campaign for reform, there will always be groups more powerful than me who are in control and masses of people who are willing to cede the government to them becuase they believe its the right thing to do, even after years of education and propaganda from political groups.
Whether you agree with my view or not, I am not going to be swayed by political propaganda and special interest groups calling. So why not make it easier for both of us and just not waste each other's time?
My point is that some people do want to hear the message, and may choose to get involved in something based upon a telephone call they receive.
SO CALL THE PEOPLE WHO WANT TO BE CALLED!
Give me a break!
When I say I don't want to be called, I DO NOT WANT TO BE CALLED. Do you get it yet?
You don't want to be bothered? Then don't pick uo the phone. There are plenty of autoscreening solutions out there, so you wouldn't have to lift a finger. Is it so hard to get off the couch?
Why can't they just honor a do not call list? What difference is it if I pay $100 for some stupid system to keep these idiots off my phone or if they just agree not to call me in the first place?
Lord High Crapflooder The Right Honourable Vlad Craig Esther McDavenpherson III
Destroyer of Mercatur.Net
Over here, the politicians go out to public places and meet the public. People can go up and talk to them, and they talk back to you. You can even go to the booths and troll them a bit, you know, catch them off-guard with questions they can't answer (and they even admit to not being able to answer them.) They have a lot of ways of getting their message out. They don't need to harass people over the phone. The Norwegian populace is otherwise generally very educated and very informed.
And then you have other countries (not going to mention any names) where the politicians have bodyguards to keep the yucky proletarians away, and the only questions that are asked have been prepared ahead of time, and asked by people who were specially selected ahead of time. Unlike in other countries, where political organizations hire their little cronies to harass people on the phone.
So I'll repeat myself - I don't give a shit about anyone who feels they have some kind of right to harass me over the phone - whether it be to sell their shit or push their dumbass political agenda (back in the US it was usually various flavors of halleluja-freakballs that called). They can all fucking get ebola and die!
People say I'm crazy, I got diamonds on the soles of my shoes...
The proposed bill does not grant an exception to the do-not-call list to all businesses; it grants an exception to businesses that have an *existing* business relationship with you. Still not good, but a random telemarketer won't be allowed to call you if you're not already a customer one way or another.
So, let's just examine CIBC for example. Let's say Joe Canuck has a checking account with them. Now he has a relationship with them.
Ah, so only they will phone, right?
Wrong. Now CIBC can call you, anyone in their umbrella corporation can call you about:
- insurance
- trips to Barbados
- Cuban cigars
- investing in mining stock in Brazil
- buying a timeshare in Guadaloupe
When you do business with one firm, you are doing business with ALL the firms that corporation owns, under the definitions.
And that, my friend, is just plain wrong. It should be opt-in.
If I have a telephone in BC, then I have no choice but to have their corporation get my permission for all their "corporations" to phone me. When I have a checking account or a credit card, that's hundreds of corporations that can now phone me.
To you it's a small door.
To me, it's hundreds of doors that I didn't even know about existing in the first place.
Now, mind you, I'm basing this on my Business Management degree from Capilano College and some law courses I took in high school in B.C., but I doubt it's changed that much.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
The do-not-call-list has worked great for me. Since I signed up I have gotten zero telemarketers. Just a couple pollsters. After I got VoIP (kept my phone number), I started getting telemarketer calls again and i thought the do-not-call thing wasn't working. Then I learned that any time the service on a number is change in any way (such as going from POTS to VoIP) it gets removed from the list and you have to add it again. I added it again and the calls stopped.
I don't really know why your business is still getting calls. Are you getting called by telemarketers or just cold calls from B2B sales people? Perhaps they are calling one of the numbers in your hunt group and not your main number? Did you add ALL your businesses numbers to the list? Most businesses will have a group of numbers with one "main" number that autoforwards to a free line in a group.
-matthew
"THERE IS NO JUSTICE, THERE IS ONLY ME." -Death
I hate when those police organizations call and say stuff like, "We think that losing even ONE child is too many. Don't you agree?"
I usually try to say completely calm and cold, "No actually one is ok. Most people have more than one kid as a backup anyways."
Very hard to do actually, you should try it sometime.
*Of course I value human life, especially children. It just gets me how these people try and prey on your emotions to get $10*
Oh, for fuck's sakes. Americans get just as many bullshit cases like that then we do. That's why there is a -justice- system. This will be analyzed and thrown out due to human rights issues and previous case history.
Before you claim the following:
but at least we still have freedom of religion and speech, unlike Canada
Read our fucking Bill of Rights:
PART I BILL OF RIGHTS
Recognition and declaration of rights and freedoms
1. It is hereby recognized and declared that in Canada there have existed and shall continue to exist without discrimination by reason of race, national origin, colour, religion or sex, the following human rights and fundamental freedoms, namely,
(a) the right of the individual to life, liberty, security of the person and enjoyment of property, and the right not to be deprived thereof except by due process of law;
(b) the right of the individual to equality before the law and the protection of the law;
(c) freedom of religion;
(d) freedom of speech;
(e) freedom of assembly and association; and
(f) freedom of the press.
...is to figure out how to contact the Direct Marketing Association (or its Canuck equivalent; I forget its name) and get struck off the list.
I did this nearly a decade ago and I have *no telemarketing calls* save three local charities that aren't members of the DMA.
Unfortunately, I failed to save the information. I recall I obtained it by calling the telco and getting downright irate about the attempts by Sprint Cda to slam me into one of their plans. Somehow or other I finagled a phone number from the customer service rep...
--
Don't like it? Respond with words, not karma.
"No one needs any form of regulation from government at any level as they all create favoritism and don't fix any problem. Even pollution regulations are better controlled by the free market. Heavy polluters get blasted by watchdog groups, cleaner emitters get praised and consumers make the decision who succeeds and who fails."
I completely disagree. A corporation runs for profit. A watchdog report might come every year, but it is not the report that causes any problems - it is the media presentation of that report. Typically most reports dont make it into a newspaper so most companies dont change the way they act.
Nike still use sweatshops. They still sell loads of shoes.
I'm sorry, but you obviously didn't read the article. These are the OPPOSITION's amendments (the opposition being your beloved CONSERVATIVES) who want to protect their buddies in big business.
The government (i.e. liberal) amendment is to allow the person with the telephone number to say they want to exempt charities when they put themselves on the list. That's more reasonable, obviously.
Don't bother putting your foot in your mouth. We forgive you for your ignorance. You're obviously practicing to be an American.
"I have never let my schooling interfere with my education." - Mark Twain
I have heard a lot of people combat telemarketers by feigning interest in the product or service and then asking the caller to hold while they get a pen and paper. Then they set the phone down and never come back on the line.
My sister used to work as a telemarketer. She told me that she LOVED these calls. The productivity software at the service bureau shows her as working a call. In actuality, she used the time to read, chat with friends, etc.
At the end of the day, she was credited for keeping a customer on the phone for 20 minutes.
While the workers may enjoy these calls it might still make sense as a way to hurt the companies bottom line.
I may just be the only one, but must ask, what telemarketers?
I get calls every week from my creditors, but they're my own damn fault. I only recieved one unsolicited call last year, and I took pity on the poor schmuck and did his 40 minute survey so he wouldn't have to worry about feeding his kids (read: drug habit) that night.
So, yeah, they can resist making a dnc list all they like, so far as I'm concerned, cuz I'm not harassed anywhere near as much as those poor folks I used to call almost 10 years ago, when I was a call-bot.
A couple fans told me that my last journal entry was mint; give it a shot. Hope you like.
Such a "right" exists only in your imagination.
Furthermore, it takes a fair bit of imagination to suggest that political pressure groups are interested in educating people, instead of pushing a view through any means possible including freely misleading people. I think I'd rather get my information from a broad spectrum of sources -- the Economist, NPR Morning Edition, the NYT, News.com, the BBC, AP, Reuters, AFP, UPI, the Washington Post, factcheck.org, the news.google aggregate, thomas.loc.gov... rather than some "activist" who's trying to read a script at me in order to get a contribution to his organization. Not to mention that in terms of government power, well, I'm the sort of weirdo who reads about Stalinism, the intertwined feudal dictatorships of lord and priest, and Machiavelli, for his own enjoyment. So I'm not some bloody naive statist who's too optimistic for his own good while blithely believing politicans' -- or critics' -- press releases.
Care to send me information? Then send it in a readable format where your assertions are recorded, and with corroborating detail, for confirmation or ridicule on my own damn time. But cold-calling me to suggest that drunk drivers are really terrorists; that abortion is somehow a first-order issue which should be decided based on chants and marches, not the Constitution; or that God will forsake America if we don't down libbberal "activist" judges is only going to educate me that you're probably just another dime-a-dozen extremist.
Only the dead have seen the end of war.
What did I say about government teaching anything?
I've worked on a number of local grassroots campaigns where telephone campaigning has been necessary to get the message out and recruit people to volunteer.
Good for you. Please respect my wishes when I declare I do not want to be called and understand that those of us who don't want to be called are not going to mend to your ways.
Sure, some people don't want to hear anything. But some people do. Don't generalize and assume that all groups that call people are not honestly interested in educating the public. Yes, they may have an agenda, but points of view you haven't already heard should be welcome.
Good for them. Call them, not me. I signed up for the DNC so please respect that. I do not wish to impose anything on anyone, except those who wish to impose their views on me, I wish to tell them to fuck off and leave me alone forever.
I am saying that it is not out of the question. Outreach to citizens is very important, politically, and can contribute to quality of life in myriad ways. The economy also contributes to quality of life.
Thats some twisted thinking. Do people exist outside of their homes and telephones?
Most businesses do not use telemarketing to gain sales.
Don't like it? Don't pick up the phone. Nothing is stopping you, nothing at all.
Who gave you the right to keep calling and harassing me at all odd hours of day and night even after I said stop calling me and putting myself on a DNC?
What I don't agree with, is not allowing communication about an issue just because the method annoys you.
Television ads bother the crap out of me -- but I'm not saying they should be banned.
Um, its my phone. If I don't want to be called, I think you should respect my wish. Way to alienate people you want to sway to your side. I have no problem with you calling people who have not made their wish clear that they don't want to be called. I have a problem when you think you are entitled to bother my free time or my family's time for your own selfish interests.
I don't like TV ads either but the TV does not go RING RING RING and then require me to either listen to it ring for several minutes or turn it on and be forced to hear some spiel from idotic politican. (I don't own a TV anyway, thankfully).
Lord High Crapflooder The Right Honourable Vlad Craig Esther McDavenpherson III
Destroyer of Mercatur.Net
From someone who has had the nerve, it tends to work even Better if your both men :
.. sure I guess .. "
Telemarketer: "I was wondering if I could ask you a few questions?"
Me: "May I ask you one question first ?"
TM: "Umm
Me: (Deep breathy kind of voice) "What are you wearing right now. I mean, is it sexy ?"
TM: "Umm"
Me: "Lacey ? Leather ? What, common now, don't hold back."
TM "Thank-you sir, I hope you have a good day."
*click*
--Ne auderis delere orbem rigidum meum, non erravi pernicose!
> When fire becomes a financial burden, safety will go up.
You sicken me. To paraphrase you:
"Once enough people die, and its too expensive to pay out insurance claims, insurance companies will enforce stricter rules."
Once people die. You need people to die first before anybody does anything.
State regulations may be reactive to a certain extent, but not by design. Placing safety and health regulations in a freemarket requires human suffering by dresign before a market correction.
Your counter argument, which I know already is, so what, more people die under supposedly proactive government over regulation.
Which is a hypothesis, and not factual. Turning these things over to the free market is essentially saying, "Well, we're too dumb to know what works, but one thing we know for sure is if enough people die/getsick/getfucked, it'll become too expensive to maintain insurance."
Lets be honest here, you're talking about fire insurance payouts, but the money has to do with injuries/death in addition to simple property destruction. So you're suggesting a free market where the cost/revenue model is related to people dying.
Sick.
"Old man yells at systemd"
No one needs any form of regulation from government at any level as they all create favoritism and don't fix any problem. Even pollution regulations are better controlled by the free market. Heavy polluters get blasted by watchdog groups, cleaner emitters get praised and consumers make the decision who succeeds and who fails.
That has to be the dumbest thing I have read all day. It is no wonder it got modded to +4 insightful.
Companies exist to make money. That is their sole responsibilty. In the vast majority of cases a PR problem will not affect them as much as the increased cost of doing business associated with not polluting. If you think a company won't exchance birth defects in 1000 children for a $2,000,000 increase in profits you are kidding yourself. You are also ignoring history. Those who ignore history are bound to repeat it.
I've got a feeling that you aren't too worried though. You can afford to move away from the parts of America where birth defects are staggeringly common. Assuming that you earned your wealth rather than inheriting it (though I'm positive your parents were at least well off) you know better than to believe the drivel you are spuing.
Your selfishness and greed astound me.
(Telemarketers gained this "right" on the grounds that they might make sales calls from private phones and wanted to have customers redirected to their main offices. Yeah, right. The real reason is to bypass Caller ID screening.)
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
...is telemarketers have to be creative. Have the CEO stand for some election, or something, then the company can claim to be political. Or have the company sponsor a charity, so the "primary purpose" of the call becomes publicising the charity - the sales pitch is merely an extra.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
> However, telephone solicitation is very important to business, to charities, and to
> political organizations. How do we balance their needs with citizens' wants?
How much value is there in calling people who adamantly do not wish to be called?
> I think it's very important that political groups especially are allowed to reach out to
> people in the community.
Why political groups especially? What in your view makes them more special than other groups? Is it because you are concerned about political issues? If so, can't it be argued that charities have an equally legitimate concern with social issues?
> Unfortunately, most people here in the US are ridiculously undereducated about political issues.
No argument. What makes you believe that phone calls are an effective solution to this problem?
> What I'd like to see is a proscription against soliciting over the phone, so that information could still be passed along.
Define solicitation for this purpose. Dictionary.com defines this as:
---
1. To seek to obtain by persuasion, entreaty, or formal application: a candidate who solicited votes among the factory workers.
2. To petition persistently; importune: solicited the neighbors for donations.
3. To entice or incite to evil or illegal action.
4. To approach or accost (a person) with an offer of sexual services.
---
We can eliminate #4, and #3 is useless without defining 'evil'. But what you propose seem to me to fit both 1 and 2.
It seems as if you wish to permit soliciting permission to contact again, and requiring this before soliciting (funds, votes, purchasing, etc) in earnest begins.
> This would help reduce how much certain subsets of the population are taken advantage of by telemarketers.
So would eliminating all calls. I would favor allowing people to opt out entirely.
> It's not that hard to hang up the phone, or to screen calls. I've set my phone to ring silently
> if the call is from someone not in my caller ID. I erase telemarketer numbers every couple days.
Actually, you're wrong here. "It's not that hard to hang up the phone..." if and only if a -human being- calls you. If the call is like the majority I get, it is being dialed by a machine, which routes it to a person only -after- you pick up. Often, there is no person available, so I get several dozen calls followed by dead silence before getting the opportunity to tell them not to call again.
"...or to screen calls. I've set my phone to ring silently if the call is from someone not in my caller ID..." -if- you can filter all calls by caller ID. I can't; the majority of legitimate calls I get are from people who have caller ID blocked. Refusing to pick up would (eventually) be the same as saying "I quit; send me my last paycheck."
> At this point, at least here in the US, I am very against any action that would limit political
> participation -- it's low enough already.
I don't view cold calling people who don't want to be called as "political participation." YMMV, but please accept that you are applying your own definitions to some common terms. A search of Google on "political participation definition" returns this definition, which pretty much matches mine: "becoming involved in activities such as voting, running for political office, signing petitions and other activities which help citizens make an impact on public or political issues."
While cold calling may certainly be included in "other activities" the fact that it isn't given it's own place in this definition would imply that it isn't central, but peripheral. Again, this is just my definition; but aren't you using just your definition?
> Polling and grassroots campaigning are vital to how our political system operates today, and should not be abrogated.
They aren't being abrogated. But why does -anyone- have the r
If the people of Canada don't like this they have simple recourse. Vote the government out in the next election and vote one in that will listen to their wishes. Government around the world, especially the UK, have forgotten that they are supposed to serve the people, not their own interests. The people need to take an interest and vote. If you don't vote, you don't have a right to complain later.
This is why I read at 0 so I can find decent posts such as yours.
First, I've been to Nike's "sweatshops" and you'd be surprised how few employees consider it a sweatshop compared to starving and dying in a country with little opportunity. You would also be surprised how many ex-sweatshop employees saved enough money to move to another country with better opportunities.
People are not forced to do any job at gunpoint by Nike or by any other corporation. Yet I am forced to pay 1/2 my wages to a monopoly with the threat of prison. Who runs the sweatshop?
Nader does the job people need him to do with his watchdog group. With the Internet and viral-marketing campaigns, it isn't that hard to disperse information about bad companies, and it isn't that hard to keep track of companies real time. Underwriter's Laboratories is the ultimate free market watchdog group. They stamp items that meet their safety approval, and retailers don't stock non-UL merchandise if they know what is good for them. Why is the UL succesful, yet the FDA and USDA can't get anything right?
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My 4-year-old just LOVES to talk on the phone. "Ya wanna speak to the lady of the house? SURE! I'll get her for ya!" Usually the poor schmucks hang up after about 5 minutes.
"He who would learn astronomy, and other recondite arts, let him go elsewhere. " -- John Calvin, commenting on Genesis 1
How about being an example? Or are you and your tele-harassing cronies too good for that?
People say I'm crazy, I got diamonds on the soles of my shoes...
The difference is that when its a business, competition eventually provides a safer product. Company A bends the rules and gets caught, Company B plays fair and grows.
With government, there IS no competition. They are a monopoly
First of all, "eventually" is not good enough when it comes to life and death.
Secondly, what magical process is preventing a Corporate monopoly in your regulations-free world?
The monopolies of the past were broken up by those governments you dislike so. Standard Oil, for example...
And as for what happens when you deregulate... remember the rolling brownouts of california when they deregulated power?
Remember the giant international blackout caused by deregulated pruning of the trees around Ohio's powerlines?
There is no basis in reality to this fantasy that businesses would make a safer world if only the regulations were removed. In fact, it's pretty consistent that they do the opposite. The regulations came about precisely because busonesses were NOT working towards the common good, but in fact (shock!) were only working for profit.
I bet you think that tobacco companies provide a safer product through competition or something? And not, you know, an addictive poison.
You can't take the sky from me...
The problem faced by Canada and/or the USA is indicative of a more general (and therefore more difficult to solve) problem.
When a telemarketer calls you from your own country, both parties are governed by the same laws, however, many of those laws are ineffective when the caller and recipient are in different countries.
With cheap telecommunications international telemarketing is becoming more common, and consumer protection is beginning to suffer.
Take, for example, the recent spate of calls that have originated in Florida, and targetted North-West Europe. Each of these European countries has a national do-not-call list, yet international telemarketers are ignoring these lists, believing themselves to be untouchable.
It's become so bad that "the Consumer Ombudsmen from the Nordic Countries of Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Finland and Iceland have contacted the US Federal Trade Commission and cited concerns over some international business practices" [1][2]
The letter itself cites concerns over both telemarketing and general internet marketing, and illustrates that once national boundaries are crossed, the temptation to increase sales (possibly by misrpresenting the goods that are being sold) may be more than some telemarketers (or telemarketing company managers) can bear.
What is needed is a global agreement on Do-Not-Call lists. Without such an agreement, national lists will be entirely irrelevant as each company conscientiously respects it's own citizens whilst mercilessly telespamming the rest of the world.
boakes.org
Oh goodness... do you really want to encourage the ones who target the machine? When I lived in California, I came to dread coming home and checking the answering machine. There's always be series of "Sean, this is Mark of A1 Banking. I hate to say it, but we've run into a problem with your account. Call me immediately at 1-555-555-5555 so we can fix this" with inevitably routed to a credit card pitch. *sigh* One would think false advertising would apply somewhere in there. If you picked up the phone while the message was being logged, they immediately hung up.
This sig has absolutely no significance and serves only to take up screen space and waste the time of the reader.
It's more fun than a barrel of telemarketers. Just lie to them. "My air travel habits, well lets see we take the company jet to Japan twice a month but we don't really travel on commercial flights." Which hotel do we use? Well our company does major business in Japan so we often stay with the Prime Minister. Lovely home, so many servants." Make stuff up, tell'em you've got 15 kids all under the age of 2. String 'em along until they drown in BS. If everyone did this their data would be worthless. "Boss our poll data shows everyone in Canada makes 10 million a year and rides Radio Flyer wagons pulled by hamsters to work."
Because they're not. I want to be left alone. And these useless asshats who want to harass me with their filth better damn well respect that. If I want information, I know where to get it.
And why should I have to be the one wasting my energy in calling everyone, telling them not to call me?
As for the private do-not-call list, what a joke! Do you reallly trust private industry with such a thing? Oh wait, I know the answer to that...
People say I'm crazy, I got diamonds on the soles of my shoes...
The Canadian Marketing Association has a Do Not Contact service for both mail and telemarketing. I signed up when I moved, and I never get junk mail, and rarely get calls from telemarketers.
I get occasional telemarketing calls from Bell Canada and Rogers Cable but I'm an existing client. Rogers hires the worst, most aggressive call centers to peddle their internet service. The last guy to call me just needed me to say my name to sign up. After refusing the service a few times, he tried to get me signed up by saying my name and asking me if that was my name.