Do Not Call Registry exceeds 10 million in 3 days, says FTC

US consumers can register on-line at donotcall.gov to say that they do not want to receive telemarketing calls. The FTC is backing this with Do Not Call provisions of the Telemarketing Rules which it will start enforcing from 1st October.

The FTC promises that, on that date, consumers who register by 31st August will start to notice a downturn in the number of telemarketing calls they receive. Some calls, however, such as those from political organizations, solicitation calls on behalf of charities, and calls to conduct surveys, are not covered by the National Registry requirements. Consumers who sign up for the registry may still receive these calls.

In addition, companies with which consumers have an established business relationship may call for up to 18 months after the last purchase, payment or delivery, even if the consumer's name is on the National Do Not Call Registry.

Companies to which consumers have made an inquiry or submitted an application can call for three months. If a consumer asks a company not to call, however, that request trumps an existing business relationship.

If consumers place their numbers on the National Registry, they may give written permission to particular companies that they want to hear from. If consumers do not put their number on the National Registry, they can still prohibit individual telemarketers from calling by asking them, one by one, to put them on their company's do not call list.

After October 1, telemarketers will be required to access the registry every three months and scrub numbers on it from their call lists. Telemarketers who call a number on the list could be fined up to $11,000 per call.

Speaking today, FTC Chairman Timothy Muris said, "consumer response has been enthusiastic." On Friday, seven million telephone numbers were logged into the system; Saturday the number slowed to 4.6 million; and Sunday the number was two million.

In the UK, the Telephone Preference Service was set up in 1995 as a voluntary self-regulatory mechanism to enable consumers to opt-out of receiving unsolicited sales and marketing calls.
After the Telecommunications (Data Protection and Privacy) Regulations of 1999 came into force on 1st May of that year, OFTEL issued an invitation to tender for the management of the Regulations' Telephone and Fax Opt-Out Schemes. The DMA was awarded the contract to run the Telephone Preference Service (TPS) and Fax Preference Service (FPS).

Like the US scheme, the TPS enables Individuals to register their objection to receiving direct marketing calls with a central service. Telemarketing companies are able to receive the list of numbers that have been registered by subscribing to the TPS.