Court Finds F.T.C. Exceeded Authority on Do-Not-Call List
By MATT RICHTEL

Published: September 24, 2003


A federal district court has ruled that federal regulators overstepped their authority in establishing a national do-not-call registry, a decision that would appear to block the registry — containing 48 million phone numbers — from taking effect on Oct. 1. Under federal rules, telemarketers could be heavily fined for calling those numbers.

Full article....

Why did they do this?
Discuss.

This sums up what I think:
Dave Barry - 8/31/03
Ask not what telemarketers can do to you

"Leading the charge for the telemarketing industry is the American Teleservices Association (suggested motto: 'Some Day, We Will Get a Dictionary and Look Up 'Services' ''). This group argues that, if its members are prohibited from calling people who do not want to be called, then two million telemarketers will lose their jobs. Of course, you could use pretty much the same reasoning to argue that laws against mugging cause unemployment among muggers. But that would be unfair. Muggers rarely intrude into your home."

Fighting progress and innovation in the name of maintaining a ratio of jobs is always a stupid and short-sighted approach, and one used almost exclusively by politicians in need of votes.

its not over yet, 50 million Americans signed up very quickly for this list. Thats a HUGE segment of the population.. They will not be ignored. Fucking telemarketers will be brought down.. im so SICK of the fact that my goddamn phone rings every 5 minutes LITERALLY with assholes trying ot sell me shit...

ditto. it's damn annoying.

I like to harass them...its fun...and rarely gets old...

Plus, you can come up with new and innovative ways to do it.

My Performance instructor used to be a telemarketer, and he told us today that he got SO many people that used the bit from that one Seinfeld episode, if you know what I'm talking about. And he was just like "Uh uh...yeah, I've seen that episode too. Have a nice day."

Yeah, which is an especially boneheaded move in this case since they're alienating 48 million voters.

It's not only a half-assed approach by the government to conserve jobs... but also a way for Bush to protect his rich corporate buddies that are backing his campaign.

Lots of politicians do that crap, both GoP and Dems. It's just typical D.C. pandering bullshit.

Actually, the (apparent) 'anti-spam' laws for on the Internet are very similiar.
In that, SPAM only ever becomes illegal, IF a person specifically requested not to recieve it (from a particular entity), then this 'entity', repeatedly sends the 'same' message.

E.g: You receive the typical SPAM mail about Penis enlargements, which contains an option down the bottom (required under US federal law), to no longer receive the junk mail.

what a nice thought... you can "opt-out" of receiving spam.

but the problem, once you respond to the email, you confirmed the existance of your email address & that you read the email...
the Spammers then go and take this email address, and apply it to their database for when sending (different) spam messages.

Also, most, if not all, ISP's WILL NOT allow spamming across their servers / internet connection. So, to begin to SPAM anyway, usually involves some sort of hacking, to send them from someone else's server - which of course is illegal.

So while the actual task of getting to send Spams, usually invloves illegal activity, why isn't the whole process outlawed ?
Instead, legislators won't ban it, as it 'hinder's business's making a profit' (illegally), and usually ends up costing the end user - as spamming companies usually look for privately hosted servers, with very little security, which it can use to relay the messages, and also because they wouldn't expect any legal backlash from the home user. (scare them into submission)

Of course, this all relates to "unsolicited" spam.

Agreed