money.cnn.com/2003/09/24/...tm?cnn=yes (http://money.cnn.com/2003/09/24/technology/ftc_donotcall/index.htm?cnn=yes)

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>U.S. court rules FTC overstepped its authority when it set up the list to block telemarketing calls.

...

The FTC has signed up some <strong>50 million</strong> phone numbers for the list, which was due to take effect Oct. 1.

The Direct Marketing Association sued to block the list shortly after Congress approved it in January, saying it would violate free speech laws and discriminate against the telemarketing industry, which employs millions of people. [/quote]

Bummer! I didn't add my name since I have a call blocker but I know my Grandparents were really hoping this would reduce the number of telemarketers that were calling their home. It's not surprising though that the DMA sued.

NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!

Why do companies get to stop laws? That's a problem.

The people of this country want a law to stop these phone calls. The company gets to stop "we the people" in making laws?

Or another recent one.

We the people want public transit and light rail. The taxi companies and car dealership block it.... ummm...... excuse me?

Why is this even allowed. Last I checked "we the people" make the laws of the land and these companies can go get bent...

People make laws, companies don't. However, I don't live in a box either and know very well that I'm not free and we in the US are not free at all. The coperations rule the land and do what ever they please. Including putting a political purchased idiot in charge to bomb other countries. =/

Umm... Trev, no offense man, but your argument is full of holes.

People don't get to make laws that are unconstitutional. And companies can't stop laws, only the judicial system can stop laws. To stop laws you must prove that they violate existing laws, or that they violate the constitutional rights of a person. Companies have just as much of a right to question the right for a law to exist as a person can.

And despite the fact that many people like to think of a company as a faceless being, a "company" can be hundreds or thousands of people. While the people of the company may not always agree with the morals and ethics driving the company, many will usually choose to go with things that allow them to keep their jobs and get pay raises.

Granted, they were probably padding their numbers, but many telemarketing companies were against the DNC list because they stated that well over 70% of their business is conducted through "cold calling". Take away 70% of any company's income and see how many survive. Like it or not, the DNC list will affect the economy, probably for the worse. Think about how many times you've seen the make up of a call center. They employ a lot of people.

Now, I'm not anti-DNC List by any means. I was one of those 5000 people per second in that first day. However I like to get a little more information on the subject than the sensationalism that the media chooses to feed us.

For instance, in the CNN article linked above, it states that the US District Court said to stop the DNC List from going into effect, but it neglects to mention that the FTC can easily appeal to the Supreme Court and get the ruling overturned if they can prove that the DNC List is Constitutional. While the Supreme Court may take over a year to grant a final decision, the FTC can easily request a stay against the sentence handed down by the District Court until the Supreme Court will hear the case.

I'm sure it'll go back and forth for a long time. It will be a pretty interesting case to follow imo. The ultimate decision could have a lot of influence on future cases that might involve marketing by email, phone, internet, etc.

Well, I hope there is a constitutional way to craft a law that protects my privacy at home. Its about the only thing that gives me "road rage" anymore. The telephone is a basic form of communication in our society. Its not strictly necessary, and for some its a luxury, but most consider it standard equipment. Ther eis nothing worse than coming home from a long day at work, trying to relax, only to have telemarketers start calling.

I realize that there are thousands of people who earn their living by this type of employment. And while I don't wish them unemployed and destitute, I want my privacy more than anything else. I don't want to have to deal with salespeople who are training not to take "no, thank you" as an answer, those whom I finally just have to hang up on. It raises my blood pressure just posting about it. It honestly does create a "road rage" effect in me.

Interesting thing about this as a kinda side note.

y little cousin works for a company that provides telemarketing companies with their software. This summer when I was up there for his wedding he was talking about the fact that their company is now divided into two parts. Half of the company still provides the software and technical support for the telemarketing centers but the new larger half is in charge of setting up and implamenting the software and databases for the national DNC list. He was laughing about the two sides of the company working to put each other out of business but in truth what he said was that the company had already implamented a switch over plan to transfer all employees from the telemarketing part to the DNC part as needed. DNC list wasn't hurting his company in fact it was making it expand :)

I didn't think I was going to have to invest in a Tele-zapper, but now I do.

I hope congress can get off it's collective butt and enact some legislation. Sounds like that might be required here.

Most my arguements are always full of holes. I belong to collective american uninformed cause I get all my news via MSNCB. I don't mind cause so are my socks! Ever since I moved to Boston I ride the train to work and no longer get my NPR =/. I miss something about driving to work, but traffic is certainly not one of them =P.

Anyway, it is just my opinion but I bet that the lost business stat they quote is completely false. If all these people are signing up on the DNC list it would stand to reason that everybody on the DNC list doesn't like or buy things from that type of marketing. Hence it improoves the chances for these Telemarketers to call people who do buy things that way.

Well I read a different news article that named the companies involved in the court action.

I think I will call them and let them know how I feel about doing business with them.

www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssis...nt/2117747 (http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/front/2117747)

U.S. Security,
(91:cool: 664-8273

Chartered Benefit Services Inc.,
(847) 797-8500

Global Contact Services Inc.,
Phone: (704) 782-0596

InfoCision Management Corp.
330-668-1400

Direct Marketing Association Inc
212.768.7277
Fax: 212.302.6714
Telephone: 202.955.5030
Fax: 202.955.0085

BTW

There are a few ways to at least cut down on telemarketing calls. Even before the DNC list I was only getting maybe 1 every 2 weeks.

1. Have an unlisted number.

2. NEVER fill out entry forms for contests or if you do give an invalid phone number.

3. If you get a telemarketing call ALWAYS tell them to put you on their DNC list. If you do business with the company tell them if they ever call you again you will no longer do business with them and to put this in your customer info file. I have called back companies that I do business with that I have told this to and asked them if this was in my account info and if they say no I ask them why since I specifically asked that it be put there.

4. Look on the net for items that block spamming (think one is www.nospam.com or somehting like that. IT has several things for blocking telemarketing.

Good luck

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>1. Have an unlisted number.[/quote]

That doesn't work for several reasons, the biggest being that most companies use computers to gernerate phone numbers now.

Two words: Caller ID.

If you get "Private Caller", "Out of Area", or a business name you don't recognize, just don't pick up the phone. Legitimate businesses don't block their number, and if your acquaintances have caller ID blocking, just tell them to turn it off when they call you.

Instead of a national do not call list, I'd love to see the caller ID blocking ability removed. (It's already not implemented for calls coming in to 800 numbers and such.) That way I can throw away spam without even looking at it, just like snail mail spam.
<blockquote>Stormhaven says:<hr>Like it or not, the DNC list will affect the economy, probably for the worse. Think about how many times you've seen the make up of a call center. They employ a lot of people.[/quote]Good riddens. The very thought of someone getting paid to annoy the crap out of ordinary people so they can push their useless junk sickens me. (Yes, I'd rather have them leech unemployment from their prior employer than go this route.)

I'm sure it took these litigants a lot of effort to forum shop for an ultra-liberal judge just to get this ruling, in Oklahoma of all places. Hopefully this will be promptly reversed by either the circuit court, but almost certainly by the Supreme Court.

This is total bs. Do you think people who sign up for a "do not call" list have any intention of buying from telemarketers? NO. I pay for the phone for my own use. Not to be barraged by annoying telemarketers. I can't afford any fancy call blockers or caller ID, so I don't answer my landline at all. I find dealing with these people so incredibly annoying, it isn't even worth answering. Especially when I'm eating dinner. To be honest if my service wasn't so unreliable I'd can the landline entirely and use my cell phone. Telemarketers can't call cell phones legally since you pay by the minute. Thank god.

Personally I would like to see the following:

1. Have your name on a no junk mail/mass mail list. Think of it . No more credit card offers, car offers, morgage offers, save on life insurance, junk flyers, etc etc. I currently throw away 80% of the mail that comes to my house. I wish I could throw away 99% of the rest as they are bills. BTW make it so bills are just bills and not envelopes STUFFed with special offers.

2. Make it a law that popups have to be coded identifying it as a popup and have options on your computer to where you wont receive popups. Yes, there are popup blockers but the people who create them are as inventive about getting around them as the folks who make the blockers are in blocking them. I want something that makes it easy to stop the crap.

Along this line all email which contains advertisement has to be coded as such so that with a simple click in your email program it goes straight to the trash bin.

3. Have the do not call list extend even farther to include charities,etc. If I want to talk to someone about my money I will call them.

In short. I want advertisers and sellers to leave me the hell alone. I am polite to telemarketers but basically if the entire industry fell off the earth tomorrow I could care less.

#1 exists - you can request that your post office not deliver junk mail.

As for #2, Google's toolbar works great, and it's free.

<blockquote>Stormhaven says:<hr>#1 exists - you can request that your post office not deliver junk mail.[/quote]Clue me in then! Last time I checked, the post office was paid to deliver all the junk mail and has a legal obligation to do so. The post office isn't even on the consumer's side, as they have a "spammer's special" option where they will guarantee delivery to all addresses in an area for a special rate so long as you provide them with a large enough percentage of the real addresses.
<blockquote><hr>As for #2, Google's toolbar works great, and it's free.[/quote]True, and Popup Stopper also does a very nice job for free(www.panicware.com), but nowadays I'm seeing more and more of the obnoxious Java pop up ads with sound. So I have the option of either disabling active scripting and missing a lot of real content, or wading through some stupid animation that only makes me despise the product they're pushing even more.
<blockquote>casualeq1 says:<hr>In short. I want advertisers and sellers to leave me the hell alone.[/quote]Amen to that. Don't call me, I'll call you. If you want to advertise, use an acceptable medium like newspaper, television, yellow pages, banner ad (NOT popup), or just have a web site that can be found with a search engine.

I wish caller id weren't so expensive. I'd probably get some kind of device that only allowed certain telephone numbers to reach me. Everyone else would get a message:

If you are soliciting money, advertising, political campaign then HANG THE FOOK UP NOW and never call me again! Otherwise leave a message and I'll call you back. ;)

The fact is, the FTC probably did step outside their bounds in enacting this without specific order/law from Congress.

Second, requests for political, religious, and non-profit organizations should never be banned. Especially political organizations. I'm getting tired of our political leaders being those who have a ton of their own money to sink into a campaign.

I want to hear from political candidates on debates, interviews and such, not having their flunkies calling me at home 5 times a day.

You can use US Postal Form 1500 (http://www.usps.com/forms/_pdf/ps1500.pdf) and attach examples of the mail you no longer want. You can print out page 13 of this bulletin (http://www.usps.com/cpim/ftp/bulletin/1998/pb21977.pdf) which states "Postmasters may not refuse to accept a Form 1500 because the advertisment in question does not appear to be sexually oriented. Only the addressee may make that determination" if your post office gives you guff about the stuff you're attaching.

Also, a good general postal spam info page here (http://www.obviously.com/junkmail/).

I saved this thread because I though it might be of some use, and jeez after this ruling it might have some good ideas in it. Check it out..

<a href="http://pub6.ezboard.com/ftherathetravelagencyfrm50.showMessage?topicID=812 .topic" target="top">Dealing With Annoying Telemarketing</a>

They're moving faster than I exptected! Check this out:

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>Senate OKs no-call list

The Senate approved legislation that would grant authority to the Federal Trade Commission to maintain a do not call registry for telemarketers. The House approved similar action earlier today. A federal judge ruled Wednesday the FTC lacked authority to create the list. The bill now goes to the president and a spokesman said he is expected to sign it, probably on Friday. About 50 million Americans had signed up for the registry, which was to be implemented on October 1. [/quote]

www.cnn.com/2003/ALLPOLIT...index.html (http://www.cnn.com/2003/ALLPOLITICS/09/25/congress.no.call/index.html)

Funny... can't get them to act fast on anything else, but this one with 50 million potential voters interested in it, they'll work quickly.

<blockquote>Panamah says:<hr>Funny... can't get them to act fast on anything else, but this one with 50 million potential voters interested in it, they'll work quickly.[/quote]Well, this is one issue that people really care about because it affects their lives directly.
<blockquote>Stormhaven says:<hr>You can use US Postal Form 1500 and attach examples of the mail you no longer want.[/quote]That's an interesting loophole, no doubt. But it says that I can attach examples and that that specific mailer will be prohibited. Since spam comes from hundreds of different mailers (and new ones all the time), I don't see a way of practically doing this. Not to mention, I wonder if it will really be enforced on its own.

Thing that pisses me off about the DMA (direct marketeer's association) is they friggin' CHARGE you to get your address off their mailing lists.

Welll <blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>About 50 million Americans had signed up for the registry[/quote] want it :P



Tils

Is there any other country on this world allowing companies to make unwanted calls? I seriosly doubt it.

Your government clearly values profit making higher than comfortable and undisturbed living.

You all have my deepest compassion on suffering like this.

Hmmmm... well that's because the people who elect them do also.
<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>Your government clearly values profit making higher than comfortable and undisturbed living.[/quote]

That's what being American is about. Free speech and free enterprise. 2 things we hold very dear to our hearts. It's got it's good side and it's not-so-good side.

However the line has been crossed into privacy issues now, which isn't guaranteed in our constitution unfortunately. So we have to wrangle around a bit.

Dunno if you all heard, a second federal judged ruled that the DNC list violates free speech. Why should commercial speech be free? I don't think it should be.

You can't place limits like that on free speech though. It's all blanketed for a reason and rightly so. The only reason that this is a grey area (I think) is because it goes against the public interest, which is what our laws and agencies are supposed to protect.

Just taking some quotes from the latest news:

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>"... The court finds that the FTC's do-not-call registry does not materially advance its interest in protecting privacy or curbing abusive telemarketing practices. The registry creates a burden on one type of speech based solely on its content, without a logical, coherent privacy-based or prevention-of-abuse-based reason supporting the disparate treatment of different categories of speech,"[/quote]

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>"Admittedly, the elimination of telemarketing fraud and the prohibition against deceptive and abusive telemarketing acts or practices are significant public concern; however, <strong>'an administrative agency's power to regulate in the public interest must always be grounded in a valid grant of authority from Congress.' Absent such a grant of authority in this case, the Court finds the do-not-call provision to be invalid</strong>," the court order stated.[/quote]

This is history repeating itself going back to when Hoover was head of the FRC. If its not clearly written that they have the authority to regulate in the public interest, then they lose, it's pretty cut and dry. Congress will have to write an amendment that gives them the authority pretty quickly, although it sounds like that's what they are trying to do.

www.cnn.com/2003/ALLPOLIT...index.html (http://www.cnn.com/2003/ALLPOLITICS/09/25/congress.no.call/index.html)

I saw all kinds of interviews with telemarketers yesterday claiming how this would throw all kinds of people out of works.

It's like.... lets say there was a public spanking machine and you hired 300 people to operate it. They'd run up to you in parking lots and public places and try to drag you off to the spanking machine. You have to say, "Hey Nonny Nonny no! Don't want no spankings fo sho!" and that employee of that spanking machine will leave you alone. But then another team of spankers might come for you and you have to repeat the magic words to make them leave you alone. Over and over, every day.

Ok, those spanking machine employees might only find one or two guys like Stormlin that actually consent to being spanked. How can that justify keeping all those hundreds of people employed if the vast majority don't want to be spanked?

If everyone but Stormlin just wore an red "X" on their forehead then they could hire fewer employees, and look for him without messing with the people like me that don't want a public spanking. Seems like it'd be a win to them.

I for one, have never, ever bought anything or done business with anyone that called me on the phone.

<blockquote>Maody says:<hr>Is there any other country on this world allowing companies to make unwanted calls? I seriosly doubt it.[/quote]Well, virtually all of the country wants to get rid of spam, including the President and Congress, which made the law in the first place. It's just a couple of ultra-liberal judges who are blocking the process. I'm sure it will ultimately get resolved in the consumers' favor, but the legal process takes time and it means more delay for appeals.

Many countries also have phone service which charges by the minute for calls (both incoming and outgoing parties get charged) so the government can make stricter laws governing phone solicitation as it is directly costing people money.

My feelings on people against the DNC list can be summed up like this.

If they want to block the DNC list for whatever reason then they are in favor of spam and popups. After all it is the same concept. The companies are simply trying to exercise their right to free speech and to contact you to sell you something. So therefore things like popup killers and email filters should be illegal because they are blocking a specific type of free speech which is what the judge who opposed the DNC list cited as his reason for doing so.

I found this newspaper article particularly funny:
<blockquote><a href=http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2003/09/26/MN168532.DTL>http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2003/09/26/MN168532.DTL</a><hr>Frustration with the legal delays was evident across the country. Late- night television talk show host Jay Leno joked about the Oklahoma ruling during his monologue Wednesday night.

"The judge says the telemarketers can call you whenever they want," Leno said. "You know what we should do? Let's all call this judge tonight at home during dinner."

Egged on by radio hosts, thousands of people took Leno's gag seriously and flooded the Oklahoma federal courthouse with calls.

"We've probably received thousands of phone calls," said Robert Dennis, clerk of the U.S. District Court in Oklahoma. "We've tried to conduct business as normal. But our phones have been pretty tied up at times. . . . Most of the calls were people who wanted to express their dissatisfaction with the ruling."[/quote]An excellent form of protest. I hope anyone who supports spammers gets spammed 24 hours a day until they lose their mind.

haha, that's great.

This is an interesting revelation that it is protected by free speach. Sooo....A complete stranger has a right to invade my home and my privacy? They know your name, your address and a lot of your buying habits. What about my right to privacy? This kind of freaks me out in the first place, but let me give you another scenario.

How many of you have seen the move "The Minority Report"? There is a little interesting byplay going on there with advertisements. Whenever an actor walks near an "advertising" screen it knows who they are and starts targeting them for specific products. It addresses them by their full name and attempts to sell them a product as they walk by.

Is this a far fetched Idea? No. Already law enforcement agencies are putting up surveilance cameras in high crime districts with facial recognition software.

I wouldn't scoff. I'm a senior systems developer. The machines are phenomenally fast now and getting faster. The only thing stopping this atm is the need for a name-face database........hmmm....wait, don't we already have one of those in the driver license system?

Racmoor

Yet another update:
http://www.msnbc.com/news/977251.asp

Do-not-call list ‘up and running’

Consumers can complain about violators beginning Saturday

By Martin Wolk
SNBC

Oct. 8 — The nation’s popular do-not-call list is back in business, federal officials said Wednesday after an appeals court ruled that the registry is likely to survive legal challenges by the telemarketing industry.