Do Not Call List Blocked Again - This Time Might Be More Difficult To Solve
from the whooops dept
Well, after the House and Senate rushed through bills this morning giving the FTC the right to run the national Do Not Call list (which was why the list was barred yesterday) a different federal judge has blocked the list a second time - this time saying it's a violation of free speech rights. As people note in the article, this is a trickier problem to solve. Congress won't just be able to pass legislation to get around this ruling. The judge's specific complaint was in noting that the current Do Not Call list included some exceptions, such as for politicians and charitable organizations. He used this to say that the telemarketing industry was being treated unfairly, violating their First Amendment Rights. And, since it's now become a Constitutional issue, it would need to go to the Supreme Court to get overturned. Unlike Congress, the Supreme Court is not likely to move very quickly on this. Of course, one way around this (which would probably make plenty of people happy) would be to ban the "exceptions" also. Unfortunately, politicians aren't likely to agree to remove their own ability to bug you with telemarketing calls. Meanwhile, the list still exists and the FTC says you should keep signing up. However, many people are suddenly afraid that instead of a "Do Not Call" list, it's quickly becoming a "here's a bunch of legitimate phone numbers we can call" list. The Direct Marketing Association is thinking about whether or not it will actually stop calling the people on the list. How hard is this for them to understand? These people do not want them to call. It's a waste of their time and money to call those people - so why should they want to keep calling them?
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
Reader Comments
Subscribe: RSS
View by: Time | Thread
You know, the sooner
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: You know, the sooner
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: You know, the sooner
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
telemarketing/spam/RIAA all from the same root pro
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Telemarketing List
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Telemarketing List
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Buy a Lifeguard Whistle
[ link to this | view in chronology ]