National Do-Not-Call List Triggers Huge Response

The activation on June 27, 2003 of a national Do-Not-Call registry maintained by the Federal Trade Commission triggered an enormous response from consumers. The listing service is intended to give consumers who are fed up with telemarketing calls an option to block the majority of such calls. Consumers can register either online (www.donotcall.gov) or via a toll-free number. Once a consumer's phone number is added to the list, telemarketers have three months to remove the number from their call lists. By October 1, 2003, telemarketers who ignore the registry could face fines as high as $11,000 per call. Although most telemarketers are covered by the new rules, exceptions include calls from polling firms, political or charitable organizations and calls from businesses outside the FTC's jurisdiction. The registry does not affect firms with existing business relationships with customers. Companies retain the right to contact their customers for up to 18 months after their last transaction, or up to three months after a request for information or submission of an application. Nevertheless, the FTC believes that the registry will lead to as much as an 80 percent reduction in telemarketing calls for those registered.

On its first day alone, the Do-Not-Call registry added over 735,000 new home telephone, fax and cell phone numbers. The Washington Post reported at one point that 108 people per second were registering their numbers. The FTC had expected a large volume of requests, but the traffic was so great that the agency had to add new computer capacity by midmorning when many people were being turned away from the website. The FTC estimates that 60 million consumers will register on the list within one year.

Understandably, the telemarketing industry is not happy. Calling the registry an infringement on the right to free speech, the industry has filed suit to stop the registry from going into effect. Tim Searcy, executive director of the American Teleservices Association, told the Washington Post that he was not surprised by the intense consumer interest in the registry. However, he warned that the new rules would likely lead to a loss of up to 2 million telemarketing jobs.