Do Not Call list gets a reprieve

By Liz Pulliam Weston

The prospect of 145 million angry Americans has Congress and federal bureaucrats moving to protect the Do Not Call list, which humorist Dave Barry rightly calls "the most popular federal concept since the Elvis stamp."

There's no red-state, blue-state divide on the list, which prohibits telemarketers from bothering folks who have registered their phone numbers. Republican or Democrat, Libertarian or Green Party member, everybody detests telemarketers -- except, of course, telemarketers themselves. Four days after the list opened for business, 10 million numbers were registered. A year later, 63 million. Today, 76% of American adults have registered on the list that the FTC credits with "restoring the sanctity of the American dinner hour."

Built into the 2003 law were measures to protect its accuracy, such as occasional purging of disconnected and reassigned numbers (so the next person with the number can get all the telemarketing calls he wants). Another was a requirement that numbers be re-registered after five years. The earliest registrants would have been fair game for telemarketing calls as early as next summer, unless they renewed their registration beforehand.

The Federal Trade Commission said it wouldn't drop any nonrenewed phone numbers from the registry until either Congress or the agency itself acts to make registrations permanent. The popularity of cell phones (and the portability of their numbers) has changed the landscape since 2003, the FTC said. Matching bills that would remove the automatic expiration are working their way through Senate and House.

Imperfect but better than the calls

The list is a political goldmine, but the feds can't claim total success. There are still telemarketers out there skirting, bending and outright ignoring the law.

The Federal Trade Commission has brought more than two dozen enforcement actions against companies large and small. The Federal Communications Commission has issued dozens of citations regarding violations and announced consent decrees with several companies, including T-Mobile and AT&T.

The federal Do Not Call law also has some fairly big loopholes. It doesn't apply to:

• Charities.

• Politicians.

• Survey takers.

• Companies that have a prior business relationship with you.

But all in all, there's little doubt that DoNotCall.gov has made dinnertimes much quieter across the nation.

The FTC also cautioned that widespread e-mail rumors that cell-phone numbers would be released en masse to telemarketers are untrue. You can register your cell number on the Do Not Call list, just like a land line.

Continued: More ways to foil marketers

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