Yesterday, a Federal District Court ruled that the Federal Trade Commission does not have the authority to run the National Telemarketing Do-Not-Call list. The ruling appears to hinge not on First Amendment free speech issues, but rather on issues of formal jurisdiction. Thus, my comments may be obsolete by the time you read them. As an example of how popular the Do-Not-Call list is, there are 50 million numbers registered compared to 46 million dial-up internet customers in the United States. Please keep in mind when comparing these figures that some households have registered multiple phone numbers, and that some broadband internet customers have a dial-up account as backup connectivity. Nevertheless, this list clearly has popular support and is already being funded by a tax on telemarketers themselves. Expect Congress to act quickly.
I fully support the idea of a Do-Not-Call list. Like many people, I refuse to buy products from some stranger who calls me on the phone. I frankly don’t understand why anyone would whip out the credit card for some unknown person who calls claiming to be a representative of some business that he or she did not first call personally. Furthermore, the idea that I would set up an appointment for an unknown salesman to visit my home on such a basis is ludicrous.
The Direct Marketing Association should not be fighting this list in court; they should be embracing it. It represents a comprehensive list of people like me, who will not do business with their clients under any circumstances. By properly using such a list, they increase productivity of their employees by sharply reducing the number of failed sales calls. That’s right. By not calling people who will not buy, they increase odds of reaching someone who will. The people who make a living as telemarketers should not see this as job threatening; they should see this as potentially improving their close ratio and thus increasing their bonuses.
Unfortunately, the list is useless. Exempted are “political organizations, charities, telephone surveyors, the business of insurance (to the extent that it is regulated by state law), or companies with which you have an existing business relationship.” Apparently, the FCC ceded authority to the FTC to regulate “telemarketers from financial institutions, telecommunications companies and others.” In my case, at least 90% of the telemarketing calls I have received in the last 3 years are exempted from Do-Not-Call list restrictions.
In the immortal words of Bugs Bunny, “What’s all the hubbub, bub?”