I work as a Realtor and Sales Manager for a firm operating in one of the most popular vacation/retirement home destinations in the US -- the Asheville/WNC area. There are lots of people from all over the US that are interested in buying property here, and they constitute an important part of our business.
We don't do cold calls. However, if client John Doe mentions to us that his brother Joe Doe in Podunk, Iowa would like to buy a place here in the mountains, then we do want to contact Joe. This type of scenario actually happens quite a bit in our business, and it is an important part of what we've got to do to generate customers. Under the FTC rules, if they are allowed to stand, we would either have to pay the $7,735 per year to get nationwide DNC registry look-up, or else risk the $11,000 fine, or else simply not make initial contact by phone with people like John. Maybe if we are lucky we could find a mailing address and mail something to him (at $0.37 per contact, or more likely more than that as we would need to enclose some promotional literature), and maybe if we are really lucky John would send back a postage-paid return postcard (more expense) giving us permission to talk to him by telephone. Or, we could just give up on making any efforts to prospect out of our own immediate area, ceding a large chunk of our potential market to the few really big firms who can afford to pay the $7,735 per year.
That $7,735 per year may not sound like very much to you, but for our firm (which is actually mid-sized, we are about the 5th or 6th largest in our market), that figure represents somewhere between 1/4 and 1/3 of our total annual marketing budget. For smaller firms, that could be as much as half, 3/4, or even ALL of their annual marketing budget. Hyperbole? These are real numbers, and they have a real impact on real businesses and real careers. Your claim that "anyone marketing to the entire US can afford ~$7K" is simply not true, unless you are comfortable with the notion that only the select few corporate giants with the right political connections should have the opportunity to market nationwide, and the rest of we small fry should be shut out. Where's the "consumer protection" in that?
So, complain to someone who cares. I don't. As far as I'm concerned, the world would be better off without telemarketing, anyway.