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?
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