Posted on 09/24/2003 8:47:38 AM PDT by SierraWasp
11:29AM Federal court rules against FTC no-call list by William L. Watts
WASHINGTON (CBS.MW) -- A federal judge in Oklahoma City ruled that the Federal Trade Commission didn't have authority to implement a popular do-not-call list shielding consumers from telemarketing calls, the Direct Marketing Association said. The court reportedly found that statutory jurisdiction for such a list rested with the Federal Communications Commission rather than the FTC. The DMA, a trade group representing telemarketers, brought the suit. In a statement, the organization said it "acknowledges the wishes of millions of U.S. consumers who have expressed their preferences not to receive" telemarketing solicitations. The DMA said it would work with the FTC and the FCC to "evaluate the practical implications" of the judge's decision, which was issued Tuesday.
Which is why we have outlawed people who steal our private phone property.
I can't believe this needs explaining. The problem is, a telemarketer is no more conducting free enterprise than a bum on the street who is panhandling.
If I want to do business with a company or buy a product, I will voluntarily do so. But let's not be confused and say that someone calling my house and harassing me is a voluntary business transaction. It most certainly is not. It's an unwelcome intrusion.
If I have not initiated the purchase, expressed any interest in purchasing their product, nor given them any invitation to solicit my business, they are simply being a nuissance and taking the shotgun approach to marketing.
Do not be so gullible as to give credibility to the telemarketing industry, who disingenuously insist that this is a matter of free speech or free enterprise. It's harrassment and it's unwelcome. It should be illegal, just as other forms of harassment are.
Amen, amen, amen. That's the point that these disingenuous bastards refuse to acknowledge. Their real business is not "providing valuable goods and services", it's putting the hard sell the 0.05% who are too meek to tell them to go to hell.
You are so full of your own horsesh!t and determined to defend this industry full of scumbags simply because you are part of it. This is exactly the kind of B.S. I was talking about in my last post.
Rather than get a job where you're not pestering people, you defend a deplorable industry. Money over principle. Just one of the many scumbags who call us at dinner and tell us we have no right to stop them.
Fine, that's less of an intrusion to me and it puts the cost squarely where it belongs, on the marketer. Go for it, Professional.
If I were selling door to door, it would cost me nothing to see your "no solicitation" sign. Compliance would be easy and cost me nothing.
Compliance with the proposed regs for the DNC registry requires an annual expenditure of over $7K per year, regardless of how small the firm might be or how infrequently they might initiate phone calls to residences. Compliance is difficult and costly.
I would have no problem with this thing if the FTC were to simply provide a free single number look-up service on the web. This would be a reasonable accomodation for small businesses that have an occasional need to make an initial phone contact with someone, but who are not into doing massive telemarketing. Unfortunately, the system that the FTC has actually implemented only provides for such a lookup systems for a total of five user-selected area codes. To get access to the whole list, EVEN IF YOU ONLY NEED TO LOOK UP ONE NUMBER PER YEAR, costs over $7K. That is the real flaw in the FTC's implementation.
Our local electric company has a deal where if we have an outage, we call a number to report it, and then we get a callback when power is restored. Under the proposed DNC rules, the power company wouldn't be able to make those callbacks to anyone on the DNC registry unless they have previously given the power company prior permission -- permission which would then give the power company the right to call them to pitch any product they wanted. A lucrative new business opportunity for our power company!
The loopholes and unintended consequences of this hastilly devised and ill-considered measure stagger the imagination.
What the FTC didn't do was to make it possible for small businesses to see the "No Thanks" sign without paying an extortion fee of $7K+ per year, whether they could afford it or not. That is what is so objectionable. Laws that are difficult and expensive for even the law-abiding to comply with are always repugnant.
I have a legal right to determine who may utilize my private property - and your intrusion into my home via phone is a trespass upon that right. What part of that are you failing to comprehend?
Dolt.
WOW!!!
Finally!!!
A thread heading for a THOUSAND that Doesn't involve OUTSOURCING!!!
E-Mail to that list has proven unreliable.
Thanks in Advance!!
Up to five area codes are provided at no cost to the marketer. Additional area codes are provided at a fairly low set rate, with a cap of just over $7000 for the entire list.
If you're looking up one number, it will cost you nothing.
Nope -- there is an exception made for calls to existing clients or customers. Not to mention that such a call would not be a marketing call in the first place.
I agree with you. That's a real flaw. There is absolutely no reason that it should cost so much. Greedy Bureaucrats can't do anything right.
I still want the law. If I had too choose between banning all calls or allowing all of them. I'd choose the ban. But $7k is ridiculous.
See #316, above -- only companies doing true nationwide calling would be paying that much.
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