Echoing the efforts of many states, the FTC is proposing setting up a national no-call list where people could register to keep telemarketers from calling them, with violators liable to $11K fines per pop.
The Direct Marketing Association (a/k/a the Evil Overlords of the Telemarketing Demon Realm) claims this will restrict free speech (nonsense, since private individuals are simply able to opt out; the government is restricting nobody’s speech), and will cause grievous harm to an industry that employs 6 million people (!) and generates $668 billion (!!) of revenue nationwide every year.
(I note that works out to about $110,000 per employee — wanna bet that’s not what the average hapless sweatshop caller actually makes? The other fallacy of this latter argument is that it assumes that consumers will simply not buy anything if they aren’t called, which is a goofy assumption. Either they will still spend just as much, only through other avenues, or telemarketing calls are somehow coercing people to buy more than they really want to.)
The regulations would not apply to banking and telecommunications calls (since those fall under other federal departments’ control), nor to political groups or non-profits. Annoyingly enough, intrastate calls would also not be covered (since, arguably, the FTC only covers interstate calls), which means that all those state laws would still be necessary.
(By the by, did you know that current FTC regulations prevent telemarketers from calling before 8 a.m. or after 9 p.m., and require them to honor consumer requests not be called back? Neither did I.)
Bill Barrol has his own commentary on the proposed regulation:
I suppose it’s a good idea, considering that my proposal will probably never fly: outfitting every phone in America with technology to send a debilitating electrical shock back down the line, fusing the auto-dialing machine and sending the caller into convulsions, followed by the immediate dispatch of Ninja-trained rabid howler monkeys to attack the telemarketers’ still-twitching bodies, plucking the eyes from their sockets and garroting them with lengths of cayenne-rubbed monofilament.
Now there’s a proposal I could get behind, if the FTC one gets quashed.