Released: October 17, 2006

FTC hangs up on telemarketers’ pitch

Source: By Cindy Skrzycki, Washington Post (Free Registration)

The Federal Trade Commission effectively slammed the phone down on the U.S. telemarketing industry earlier this month, rejecting a request to allow prerecorded calls to consumers without their expressed consent.

Acting on a 2004 petition filed by Voice Message Broadcasting Corp. of Costa Mesa, Calif., the FTC decided it wouldn’t allow companies to use taped calls, even if they claimed a “prior business relationship” with the consumer. The only way around the ruling, the agency proposed, would be if the customer consented in writing that he was willing to accept such calls.

“This adds protection for consumers so they don’t have to deal with prerecorded messages,” said Allen Hile , assistant director of the FTC’s Division of Marketing Practices.

The decision followed an outpouring of 13,600 comments—all but 600 in opposition to the request. Many pleaded with regulators not to create a loophole in the National Do-Not-Call Registry, which allows consumers to limit the telemarketing calls they receive and contains some 130 million numbers.

“The Do-Not-Call list has been enormously successful,” said Marc Rotenberg , executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center , a District-based group that monitors privacy issues and filed comments against the industry request. “More people signed up for it than voted in the last election - Bush and Kerry combined. It’s a very clear statement Americans don’t want to hear from telemarketers.”

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