Annual survey & good news on telemarketing
Gary Ruskin
gary@commercialalert.org
Wed, 18 Dec 2002 08:49:29 -0800
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Commercial Alert, December 18, 2002
1. Annual survey
2. Good news on telemarketing: FTC announces national do-not-call
registry
3. New mailing address
--------------------------------------------------
1. Annual survey
Dear subscribers,
Commercial Alert wishes you a Happy New Year and holiday season! We
hope you enjoyed receiving our email updates during the past year. To
help us meet your needs, please give us your comments, ideas and
suggestions.
(1) What can we do to improve our email updates?
(2) What do you like about our email updates?
We also want to extend a special thank you also to our members! Your
contributions helped us win many important victories in 2002. Here are
just a few examples of our success:
* Student Privacy Protection Act. The new Elementary and Secondary
Education Act includes a provision that requires parental notification
before a corporation can extract market research from a child in school.
* CNN Student News. Bowing to pressure from Commercial Alert and angry
parents, AOL Time Warner dropped its plans to insert ads into CNN
Student News, a TV program shown to children in about 18,000 schools
each school day.
* Search engine ads. The Federal Trade Commission sided with Commercial
Alert’s complaint against eight major search engines for disguising ads
as search engine results. It told the search engine companies,
including AOL Time Warner and Microsoft, to provide “clear and
conspicuous disclosure” of ads in search engine results.
* Candlestick Park. In August, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors
rejected a proposal to sell the naming rights to Candlestick Park. That
made San Francisco the first city to return a professional sports arena
to its traditional name because of civic protest against naming rights.
For those of you who aren't yet members, we need support!
Please become a member of Commercial Alert by making a tax-deductible
contribution of $30, $50, $100, $250 or whatever you can afford today.
Make your contribution online at
<https://www.egrants.org/donate/index.cfm?ID=2404-0|1236-0>. Or you can
mail a contribution to 4110 SE Hawthorne Blvd #123, Portland, OR 97214.
As a member of Commercial Alert, you’ll receive our quarterly
newsletter, grassroots organizing and lobbying tips, and results.
We also protect our members' personal privacy and honor their values.
We do not sell, rent, trade or donate your personal information to other
organizations or businesses. We do not offer gifts, t-shirts or other
knick-knacks to our members. We don’t believe in giving you more stuff.
We believe in action and victory.
Thank you again for your support.
Sincerely,
Gary Ruskin,
Executive Director
Commercial Alert
------------------------------------------------------------------
2. Good news on telemarketing: FTC announces national do-not-call
registry
Last January, we asked Commercial Alert members and subscribers to write
to the Federal Trade Commission in support of proposed major new
restrictions on the telemarketing industry, in the form of national
do-not-call registry. The FTC is expected to announce the registry
today. Thanks again for all your letters and hard work.
While not perfect, the national do-not-call registry is a major reform
that will help restore peace and quiet to millions of households across
the country. We applaud the FTC for standing up for the right to be let
alone.
Telemarketing calls are annoying and unnerving to tens of millions of
Americans. They rudely disturb families wish want to spend precious
time together. They are a major source of hassle and stress. Stopping
telemarketing calls -- for those who wish not to receive them – will
contribute immeasurably to our quality of life.
Following is an article in today’s Washington Post.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A3964-2002Dec17.html
FTC Plans Registry To Block Sales Calls
Telemarketers Vow To Fight Proposal
By Caroline E. Mayer
The Federal Trade Commission is scheduled to announce today its
long-awaited plan to curb unwanted telephone solicitations: a national
do-not-call registry that consumers can easily join, by dialing a
toll-free number from their home telephone and then punching in some
numbers or by signing up through the Internet.
FTC officials expect 60 million Americans to register when the list
becomes operational -- which won't be for at least several more months.
It still faces logistical and legal hurdles, including a possible
lawsuit by the telemarketing industry, which makes more than 100 million
calls a day.
If and when the list is up and running, telemarketers would have to
scour it every three months and would be barred for five years from
calling the consumers who signed up. Consumers would then have to renew
their registration. If they get called anyway, those on the list can
call another toll-free number to complain. The FTC would then
investigate and could fine telemarketers up to $11,000 for each banned
call.
The agency will ask Congress for permission to collect an estimated $16
million in fees from telemarketers to pay for the do-not-call registry
-- more than three times the initial $5 million estimate officials gave
in January when they proposed it. Sources who have been briefed on the
rule said the FTC then plans to charge an annual fee, perhaps as much as
$8,000 for a large telemarketing operator, significantly higher than
originally estimated.
The agency doesn't expect consumers to notice the impact of the new
registry until next summer at the earliest, after the agency seeks
temporary funding from Congress to set up the call list and get it
running.
The Direct Marketing Association said yesterday, even before the rule
was announced, that it believes the FTC action is "unlawful in a number
of respects" and plans to "pursue all legal and equitable courses of
action to protect the American teleservices industry." Another industry
group, the American Teleservices Association, said that consumers buy
more than $275 billion in goods and services annually from telemarketers
-- about 4 percent of all consumer sales.
If the registry survives a court challenge, consumers shouldn't expect a
completely call-free dinner hour. That's because the call list, at least
initially, will still allow many unsolicited calls to get through,
including those from insurance companies, banks and telecommunications
firms, because these industries are not regulated by the FTC.
But agency officials said they hope the Federal Communications
Commission will soon revise its telemarketing rules to make these
industries comply. In September, the FCC signaled it was considering
such a change after receiving an increasing number of complaints about
telemarketers.
Regardless of that possible action, the FTC rules would still permit
unsolicited calls from charities and politicians, who don't fall under
the government's definition of telemarketers.
The agency would also permit firms that have an "existing business
relationship" with a consumer to continue to call -- for 18 months after
a consumer makes a purchase, or for three months after an inquiry about
a product or service.
A large conglomerate, such as AOL Time Warner Inc., where subsidiaries
have different names and services, would not be able to claim that an
existing relationship in one part of the company allows a telemarketing
call from an another part of the firm. Thus, a person with a
subscription to Time magazine could get calls from Time and Time-Life
Books but not from America Online Inc., sources said.
It's unclear how the FTC rule would mesh with the 28 states that have
already enacted laws setting up their own state do-not-call registries.
For now, state and federal officials say consumers would have to call
both the state and federal lists to make sure interstate and intrastate
solicitations are blocked. Eventually FTC officials said they hoped a
single call to the federal list would cover all calls. The federal
agency is also counting on state law enforcement officials to help
police its do-not-call rules.
There are no do-not-call registries in Maryland, Virginia or the
District. But officials from some other states with existing lists don't
like the federal rule. "We're concerned about confusion, we're concerned
about preemption and we're concerned about loopholes," said Jeremiah W.
"Jay" Nixon, attorney general of Missouri, where 1.1 million phone lines
have been registered on the state's do-not-call list, which was started
in July 2001.
After its first nine months of operation, the Missouri registry was
generating 50 complaints a day, and Nixon had assigned 38 of his 200
lawyers to investigate them. The state brought 62 legal actions against
alleged violators during that period.
As part of the rule, the FTC will also order telemarketers, within a
year, to start transmitting caller-ID information when they call, so
consumers with caller ID -- about half the country's phone users --
would be able to know who is calling. Telemarketers would also be
restricted in their use of automated dialers, the use of computers to
call homes in advance of having a salesperson available to talk --
leading to "dead air" at the other end of the phone when you pick it up.
<----article ends here------>
3. New mailing address
Commercial Alert has a new mailing address:
Commercial Alert
4110 SE Hawthorne Blvd. #123
Portland, OR 97214
Commercial Alert's mission is to keep the commercial culture within its
proper sphere, and to prevent it from exploiting children and subverting
the higher values of family, community, environmental integrity and
democracy. Commercial Alert has more than 1,700 members representing all
50 states and the District of Columbia.
Commercial Alert's materials are distributed via our email list. To
subscribe, go to
<http://lists.essential.org/mailman/listinfo/commercial-alert>, or send
a blank message to <subscribe@commercialalert.org>. Subscribers receive
1-2 emails per week, at most.
--
Gary Ruskin | gary@commercialalert.org
Commercial Alert | http://www.commercialalert.org/
Congressional Accountability Project |
http://www.congressproject.org/
phone: 503.235.8012 | fax: 503.235.5073
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<b><font face="Gill Sans MT">Commercial Alert, December 18, 2002</font></b>
<p><font face="Gill Sans MT">1. Annual survey</font>
<br><font face="Gill Sans MT">2. Good news on telemarketing: FTC announces
national do-not-call registry</font>
<br><font face="Gill Sans MT">3. New mailing address</font>
<br><font face="Gill Sans MT">--------------------------------------------------</font>
<br><font face="Gill Sans MT">1. Annual survey</font>
<p><font face="Gill Sans MT">Dear subscribers,</font>
<p><font face="Gill Sans MT">Commercial Alert wishes you a Happy New Year
and holiday season! We hope you enjoyed receiving our email updates
during the past year. To help us meet your needs, please give us
your comments, ideas and suggestions.</font>
<p><font face="Gill Sans MT">(1) What can we do to improve our email updates?</font>
<p><font face="Gill Sans MT">(2) What do you like about our email updates?</font>
<p><font face="Gill Sans MT">We also want to extend a special thank you
also to our members! Your contributions helped us win many important
victories in 2002. Here are just a few examples of our success:</font>
<p><font face="Gill Sans MT">* <b>Student Privacy Protection Act</b>.
The new Elementary and Secondary Education Act includes a provision that
requires parental notification before a corporation can extract market
research from a child in school.</font>
<p><font face="Gill Sans MT">* <b>CNN Student News</b>. Bowing to
pressure from Commercial Alert and angry parents, AOL Time Warner dropped
its plans to insert ads into CNN Student News, a TV program shown to children
in about 18,000 schools each school day.</font>
<p><font face="Gill Sans MT">* <b>Search engine ads</b>. The Federal
Trade Commission sided with Commercial Alert’s complaint against eight
major search engines for disguising ads as search engine results.
It told the search engine companies, including AOL Time Warner and Microsoft,
to provide “clear and conspicuous disclosure” of ads in search engine results.</font>
<p><font face="Gill Sans MT">* <b>Candlestick Park</b>. In August,
the San Francisco Board of Supervisors rejected a proposal to sell the
naming rights to Candlestick Park. That made San Francisco the first
city to return a professional sports arena to its traditional name because
of civic protest against naming rights.</font>
<p><font face="Gill Sans MT">For those of you who aren't yet members, we
need support!</font>
<p><font face="Gill Sans MT">Please become a member of Commercial Alert
by making a tax-deductible contribution of $30, $50, $100, $250 or whatever
you can afford today. Make your contribution online at <<a href="https://www.egrants.org/donate/index.cfm?ID=2404-0|1236-0">https://www.egrants.org/donate/index.cfm?ID=2404-0|1236-0</a>>.
Or you can mail a contribution to 4110 SE Hawthorne Blvd #123, Portland,
OR 97214.</font>
<p><font face="Gill Sans MT">As a member of Commercial Alert, you’ll receive
our quarterly newsletter, grassroots organizing and lobbying tips, and
results.</font>
<p><font face="Gill Sans MT">We also protect our members' personal privacy
and honor their values. We do not sell, rent, trade or donate your
personal information to other organizations or businesses. We do
not offer gifts, t-shirts or other knick-knacks to our members. We
don’t believe in giving you more stuff.</font>
<p><font face="Gill Sans MT">We believe in action and victory.</font>
<p><font face="Gill Sans MT">Thank you again for your support.</font>
<p><font face="Gill Sans MT">Sincerely,</font>
<p><font face="Gill Sans MT">Gary Ruskin,</font>
<br><font face="Gill Sans MT">Executive Director</font>
<br><font face="Gill Sans MT">Commercial Alert</font>
<br><font face="Gill Sans MT">------------------------------------------------------------------</font>
<br><font face="Gill Sans MT">2. Good news on telemarketing: FTC announces
national do-not-call registry</font>
<p><font face="Gill Sans MT">Last January, we asked Commercial Alert members
and subscribers to write to the Federal Trade Commission in support of
proposed major new restrictions on the telemarketing industry, in the form
of national do-not-call registry. The FTC is expected to announce
the registry today. Thanks again for all your letters and hard work.</font>
<p><font face="Gill Sans MT">While not perfect, the national do-not-call
registry is a major reform that will help restore peace and quiet to millions
of households across the country. We applaud the FTC for standing up for
the right to be let alone.</font>
<p><font face="Gill Sans MT">Telemarketing calls are annoying and unnerving
to tens of millions of Americans. They rudely disturb families wish
want to spend precious time together. They are a major source of
hassle and stress. Stopping telemarketing calls -- for those who
wish not to receive them – will contribute immeasurably to our quality
of life.</font>
<p><font face="Gill Sans MT">Following is an article in today’s Washington
Post.</font>
<p><font face="Gill Sans MT"><a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A3964-2002Dec17.html">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A3964-2002Dec17.html</a></font>
<p><font face="Gill Sans MT">FTC Plans Registry To Block Sales Calls</font>
<br><font face="Gill Sans MT">Telemarketers Vow To Fight Proposal</font>
<br><font face="Gill Sans MT">By Caroline E. Mayer</font>
<p><font face="Gill Sans MT">The Federal Trade Commission is scheduled
to announce today its long-awaited plan to curb unwanted telephone solicitations:
a national do-not-call registry that consumers can easily join, by dialing
a toll-free number from their home telephone and then punching in some
numbers or by signing up through the Internet.</font>
<p><font face="Gill Sans MT">FTC officials expect 60 million Americans
to register when the list becomes operational -- which won't be for at
least several more months. It still faces logistical and legal hurdles,
including a possible lawsuit by the telemarketing industry, which makes
more than 100 million calls a day.</font>
<p><font face="Gill Sans MT">If and when the list is up and running, telemarketers
would have to scour it every three months and would be barred for five
years from calling the consumers who signed up. Consumers would then have
to renew their registration. If they get called anyway, those on the list
can call another toll-free number to complain. The FTC would then investigate
and could fine telemarketers up to $11,000 for each banned call.</font>
<p><font face="Gill Sans MT">The agency will ask Congress for permission
to collect an estimated $16 million in fees from telemarketers to pay for
the do-not-call registry -- more than three times the initial $5 million
estimate officials gave in January when they proposed it. Sources who have
been briefed on the rule said the FTC then plans to charge an annual fee,
perhaps as much as $8,000 for a large telemarketing operator, significantly
higher than originally estimated.</font>
<p><font face="Gill Sans MT">The agency doesn't expect consumers to notice
the impact of the new registry until next summer at the earliest, after
the agency seeks temporary funding from Congress to set up the call list
and get it running.</font>
<p><font face="Gill Sans MT">The Direct Marketing Association said yesterday,
even before the rule was announced, that it believes the FTC action is
"unlawful in a number of respects" and plans to "pursue all legal and equitable
courses of action to protect the American teleservices industry." Another
industry group, the American Teleservices Association, said that consumers
buy more than $275 billion in goods and services annually from telemarketers
-- about 4 percent of all consumer sales.</font>
<p><font face="Gill Sans MT">If the registry survives a court challenge,
consumers shouldn't expect a completely call-free dinner hour. That's because
the call list, at least initially, will still allow many unsolicited calls
to get through, including those from insurance companies, banks and telecommunications
firms, because these industries are not regulated by the FTC.</font>
<p><font face="Gill Sans MT">But agency officials said they hope the Federal
Communications Commission will soon revise its telemarketing rules to make
these industries comply. In September, the FCC signaled it was considering
such a change after receiving an increasing number of complaints about
telemarketers.</font>
<p><font face="Gill Sans MT">Regardless of that possible action, the FTC
rules would still permit unsolicited calls from charities and politicians,
who don't fall under the government's definition of telemarketers.</font>
<p><font face="Gill Sans MT">The agency would also permit firms that have
an "existing business relationship" with a consumer to continue to call
-- for 18 months after a consumer makes a purchase, or for three months
after an inquiry about a product or service.</font>
<p><font face="Gill Sans MT">A large conglomerate, such as AOL Time Warner
Inc., where subsidiaries have different names and services, would not be
able to claim that an existing relationship in one part of the company
allows a telemarketing call from an another part of the firm. Thus, a person
with a subscription to Time magazine could get calls from Time and Time-Life
Books but not from America Online Inc., sources said.</font>
<p><font face="Gill Sans MT">It's unclear how the FTC rule would mesh with
the 28 states that have already enacted laws setting up their own state
do-not-call registries. For now, state and federal officials say consumers
would have to call both the state and federal lists to make sure interstate
and intrastate solicitations are blocked. Eventually FTC officials said
they hoped a single call to the federal list would cover all calls. The
federal agency is also counting on state law enforcement officials to help
police its do-not-call rules.</font>
<p><font face="Gill Sans MT">There are no do-not-call registries in Maryland,
Virginia or the District. But officials from some other states with existing
lists don't like the federal rule. "We're concerned about confusion, we're
concerned about preemption and we're concerned about loopholes," said Jeremiah
W. "Jay" Nixon, attorney general of Missouri, where 1.1 million phone lines
have been registered on the state's do-not-call list, which was started
in July 2001.</font>
<p><font face="Gill Sans MT">After its first nine months of operation,
the Missouri registry was generating 50 complaints a day, and Nixon had
assigned 38 of his 200 lawyers to investigate them. The state brought 62
legal actions against alleged violators during that period.</font>
<p><font face="Gill Sans MT">As part of the rule, the FTC will also order
telemarketers, within a year, to start transmitting caller-ID information
when they call, so consumers with caller ID -- about half the country's
phone users -- would be able to know who is calling. Telemarketers would
also be restricted in their use of automated dialers, the use of computers
to call homes in advance of having a salesperson available to talk -- leading
to "dead air" at the other end of the phone when you pick it up.</font>
<p><font face="Gill Sans MT"><----article ends here------></font>
<br><font face="Gill Sans MT">3. New mailing address</font>
<br><font face="Gill Sans MT">Commercial Alert has a new mailing address:</font>
<p><font face="Gill Sans MT">Commercial Alert</font>
<br><font face="Gill Sans MT">4110 SE Hawthorne Blvd. #123</font>
<br><font face="Gill Sans MT">Portland, OR 97214</font>
<br>
<p><font face="Gill Sans MT">Commercial Alert's mission is to keep the
commercial culture within its proper sphere, and to prevent it from exploiting
children and subverting the higher values of family, community, environmental
integrity and democracy. Commercial Alert has more than 1,700 members representing
all 50 states and the District of Columbia.</font>
<p><font face="Gill Sans MT">Commercial Alert's materials are distributed
via our email list. To subscribe, go to <<a href="http://lists.essential.org/mailman/listinfo/commercial-alert">http://lists.essential.org/mailman/listinfo/commercial-alert</a>>,
or send a blank message to <<a href="mailto:subscribe@commercialalert.org">subscribe@commercialalert.org</a>>.
Subscribers receive 1-2 emails per week, at most.</font>
<br><font face="Gill Sans MT">--</font>
<br><font face="Gill Sans MT">Gary Ruskin | gary@commercialalert.org</font>
<br><font face="Gill Sans MT">Commercial Alert | <a href="http://www.commercialalert.org/">http://www.commercialalert.org/</a></font>
<br><font face="Gill Sans MT">Congressional Accountability Project |</font>
<br><font face="Gill Sans MT"><a href="http://www.congressproject.org/">http://www.congressproject.org/</a></font>
<br><font face="Gill Sans MT">phone: 503.235.8012 | fax: 503.235.5073</font>
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