Slashdot Mirror
Australian Do Not Call Register
green-e writes "Looks like us Aussies are finally introducing a national 'Do Not Call' register. Under the plan all telemarketers would be banned from calling homes after 8pm on weekdays and 5pm on weekends. Companies that call a household on the register could face fines of up to $220,000 (AU), which could be legislated early next year. About time something like this should be set up. How effective has it been in the US ?"
It's about time.
This is awesome and I hope it's enforced thoroughly.
Sure it's going to cost some people some jobs - but lately the calls have been coming from other countries anyhow.
Marketing is invasive enough as it is, my number at home is not to be called for any old reason - this is just plain RUDE, 30 years ago you wouldn't dream of this crap happening.
... why not a complete ban on those annoying calls all day?
frovingslosh has a good point. I probably has been very effective for me since I am very careful about giving out my personal information. Anything that creates a "relationship" with a business or documents that give them permission to have 3rd parties contact me would blow it.
So I avoid:
- Prize give away forms
- Pretty much any freebee that requests name, number &/or address
- I make sure when my banks or credit companies send out requests to share my information to 3rd parties, I clearly reply back with a firm NO.
It's kind of like e-mail privacy, only since it's much easier to track the b@stards down, they really do have to prove a prior business relationship or consent given to be called.
Meanwhile in the UK, the Trading Standards Institute is extending physical "no cold calling zones" .
Let's face it, if I want to buy something, I'll do it online or go out and get it. I'm not waiting for someone to come to me with a stack of encyclopedias.. or call me with an amazing offer whilst I'm halfway through my dinner..
London's finest organic fairtrade coffee
Yeah, that's the thing that bugs me about landline phones. Despite how popular they still are there's been very little innovation over the last decade or so. You'd think landline phones would have integrated capabilities such as those you describe for Skype (e.g. - disable ring if phone number isn't in address book, and especially disable ring if caller ID has been disabled by the remote caller). It seems landline phone vendors are more interested in selling you 2.4 GHz or 5.8 GHz (or whatever frequency "teh new" for now).
Something else I'd love to see is a phone that has a memory slot (compact flash or memory stick or anything really) that you can put a card into either a) to expand the amount of memory available for saving messages and caller ID data or b) providing the primary means of storage for messages and caller ID data (in this case, the phone would probably come with some small-ish 32/64 MB card). Messages would be saved in MP3 format (or OGG even if the licensing allowed it).
I think if I didn't actually use the landline so much I'd probably ditch it and go 100% cellular...
All I know about Bush is I had a good job when Clinton was president.
politely say. "I'm not interested. Please don't call me again at this number. Thank you" and hang up.
Why politely? They still have to put you on the do-not-call list if you say "put me on your do not call list for all customers, right fucking now, you greasy little motherfucker", which is not only more satisfying, it also helps to make the caller's job less tolerable.
Telemarketing is a shitty job that no one really wants to do.
Ah, but that's precisely why it's important to heap abuse upon telemarketers. The more unpleasant the job is, the higher the attrition will be, and the less cost-effective telemarketing becomes.
I did it when I was in college because I needed the cash.
I hope the experience was so unpleasant that you'd never consider doing that job again.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
But if calling your house is 'invading your property,' and I don't have the right to do so, aren't you implying that nobody has the right to telephone you without your express permission?
I'm not the parent commenter, and I'm not a Libertarian, but I would say the answer to that question is "yes." No one has the right to call me without my permission. If I give my phone number to someone else, that may be reasonably construed as my granting permission for that individual to call me. If someone gets my number by looking it up in a book, they have no right to call me as I never granted permission. If a person calls me on the phone that I bought and my answering the phone results in airtime charges, I feel I'm within my rights to demand that the person pay me for the use of my property, airtime and personal time to talk to me (although I've never actually done that... but that's because I rarely answer calls which originate at a number I don't recognize).
Again, speaking as a non-libertarian, my understanding of libertarianism is that laws should be passed to protect people's personal and property rights as well as privacy. This means that libertarians can support laws which make theft and burglary illegal. I think a law that creates a do-not-call list which makes it illegal for people to use my property without my permission is completely consistent with that view.