finally its about damn time!

[Synthohol]

a friend sent me this link and its too good not to share.
click here, its not bull**** (http://www.msnbc.com/news/931528.asp)

[Synthohol]

bump:D

[mdzcpa]

I've already registered....good stuff.

Hopefully they'll get an anti-spam list going soon too. I'm sure that is a while off yet on a national basis, but Michigan just started their anti spam list.

Michigan's anti spam Bill (http://news.com.com/2100-1028_3-1021169.html)

[Player0]

Now if I could just keep the goddamn spammers off this site, I'd be all set.

[WackyComputer]

Alright time for some timelines.:)

The phone was invented in 1871, this law 2003.

Email was invented in 1971, anti-spam law 2103.

I can't wait.:D

[4.6POWER]

lol

what i want to know is... who's tracking / enforcing this law?

[Synthohol]

Beginning in September, telemarketers will have to check the list every three months to see who doesn’t want to be called. Those who call listed people could be fined up to $11,000 for each violation. Consumers would file complaints to an automated phone or online system.
Exemptions from the list include calls from charities, pollsters and on behalf of politicians. Registered consumers also can give written permission to get calls from certain companies.

[speculative]

Lol! The ring has clouded everyone's mind...


Q: If I register my number on the National Do Not Call Registry, will it stop all telemarketing calls?


A: No. Placing your number on the National Do Not Call Registry will stop most, but not all, telemarketing calls. Some businesses are exempt from the national registry and still can call you even if you place your number on it. Exempt businesses include:


long-distance phone companies
airlines
banks and credit unions; and
the business of insurance, to the extent that it is regulated by state law.


However, many telemarketing calls are placed by professional telemarketing companies, and even if the company whose goods or services are being sold is exempt, the telemarketing company may be covered.

You may still receive calls from political organizations, charities, telephone surveyors or companies with which you have an existing business relationship.

The FCC has initiated a rulemaking proceeding that would extend the National Do Not Call Registry to many of the businesses that are exempt from FTC coverage.


So who again was supposed to not call me? :rolleyes: x 1000 Thanks for anti-telemarketing legislation that does jack squat, whoopti-fu#$ing-do! :mad:

-spec

[mdzcpa]

Originally posted by speculative

So who again was supposed to not call me? :rolleyes: x 1000 Thanks for anti-telemarketing legislation that does jack squat, whoopti-fu#$ing-do! :mad:

-spec

What do you mean? Do you own a home? Do you have a mortgage? How old are you? I ask this not to be offensive, but to clarify the problem and determine how big it may, or may not be, for you. It is your lifestyle and age which dictates how often calls are recieved. It not only takes time to get on these call lists, but its your lifestyle which determines which lists you get on. At age 37, with a home and mortgage, 3 kids, and a lifetime of buying patterns which have lead my name to be on many a list, my phone rings constantly.....like every single night. We get at least one call every single day...but usually 2 or 3. Always at dinner time, of course.

Before this bill it was legal for anyone to be called at any time by commercial telemarketers with absolutely zero recourse. Forget about enforcement issues....there was nothing to enforce because it was legal to do.

With this bill it becomes illegal to make calls to those who do not wish to be called and are on the list. I could care less about the pollsters, politicians, and charities...I rarely get those calls anyway. It's the damn sales calls that come every single evening that I want to stop. With our caller ID I can usually tell 90% of the time who is calling but, until now, there was little I could do about it. Sure, I usually do not even pick up the sales calls, but its the damn ringing every noght that pissess me off. At least now the unwanted calls become illegal and now there is a place to report to.

This is actually a great first step.

[Synthohol]

in my A****le, er,, i mean opinion (everyones got one) if it stops 12 calls a year im gratefull! hopefully it will stop the call i get that makes me miss 30 seconds of my kid doing something real cute.

[speculative]

Originally posted by mdzcpa
What do you mean? Do you own a home? Do you have a mortgage? How old are you? I ask this not to be offensive, but to clarify the problem and determine how big it may, or may not be, for you. It is your lifestyle and age which dictates how often calls are recieved. It not only takes time to get on these call lists, but its your lifestyle which determines which lists you get on. At age 37, with a home and mortgage, 3 kids, and a lifetime of buying patterns which have lead my name to be on many a list, my phone rings constantly.....like every single night. We get at least one call every single day...but usually 2 or 3. Always at dinner time, of course.

Before this bill it was legal for anyone to be called at any time by commercial telemarketers with absolutely zero recourse. Forget about enforcement issues....there was nothing to enforce because it was legal to do.

With this bill it becomes illegal to make calls to those who do not wish to be called and are on the list. I could care less about the pollsters, politicians, and charities...I rarely get those calls anyway. It's the damn sales calls that come every single evening that I want to stop. With our caller ID I can usually tell 90% of the time who is calling but, until now, there was little I could do about it. Sure, I usually do not even pick up the sales calls, but its the damn ringing every noght that pissess me off. At least now the unwanted calls become illegal and now there is a place to report to.

This is actually a great first step.

The wording is what throws it off. Citibank, IIRC, owns 5,000 companies and trades your personal info with each and every one of them. So, if all these 5,000 companies are part of the bank enough that it's legal to trade things like social security numbers, etc., they are probably linked enough to be considered part of the bank for telemarketing purposes. I didn't see anything that spoke to this specifically, but I have not delved in-depth yet. Anything in there prove me wrong?

And now I only receive 3-5 calls per day. Out in Seattle I received 6-8 each day, so at least it's gone down a little... :rolleyes:

-spec

[Player0]

Actually, I was hounded nearly a dozen times per day only a year or two ago! NY already has a DNC registry, and I signed up for it. I also recorded a special series of tones on my answering machine which makes autodialers beleive that the number has been disconnected (you can download them off the net).

After a few months, I stopped receiving all telemarketing calls. Yeah, I know it can work, the change was amazing. I made sure to sign up for the national list as well. Most larger telemarketing companies have strict policies regarding DNC lists, and 99% of them dont risk making those calls, according to a friend in that industry.

I try not to give my phone number out to anyone these days, except for family and close personal friends. Unfortunately, cant say the same for email, and I have older accounts that get hundreds of spam per day. im getting tired of deleting it. Its gotten really bad out there.

[speculative]

True. Spam is starting to come under fire as well, so let's hope that they can do it in soon. :2guns:

-spec

[mdzcpa]

Originally posted by speculative
The wording is what throws it off. Citibank, IIRC, owns 5,000 companies and trades your personal info with each and every one of them. So, if all these 5,000 companies are part of the bank enough that it's legal to trade things like social security numbers, etc., they are probably linked enough to be considered part of the bank for telemarketing purposes. I didn't see anything that spoke to this specifically, but I have not delved in-depth yet. Anything in there prove me wrong?


Yes there is. The companies that trade the info are not the companies that call you. There is a big big difference betwen credit agencies and telemarketing. Both are geared for very different activites for efficiency reasons. And it's this very efficiency (which can only be gained through specialization of activity and economies of scale) which had lead to the outsourcing of data gathering and telemarketing by the banks and other product/service vendors in the first place. Telemarketing produces very minimal results on a "lead per call" basis in reality so it requires massive economies of scale to provide the cost benefit. Again, this is why telelmarketing is outsourced.

The Bill defines telemarketering entities based on the actions of the companies in question....not by ownership. So those companies, divisions, or spin offs which only do telemarketing activities will be defined as telemarketing companies....not banks. The only way the banks will have to telemarket you is if they bring the telemarketing activities back into the bank itself. And that flies directly opposite to why the banks (and other companies) outsource telemarketing in the first place.

[speculative]

Then that is a step in the right direction.

As far as what's happened to me since I signed up for the do not call... I've received no more telemarketing calls since then... and my number of calls per day has not decreased by a single call - it's simply that they all show up as "long distance" "telecom co." etc. on my caller ID. :rolleyes: Although it's just my own anecdotal evidence, since it's what I personally get for calls that seems to matter not.

Long story short, telemarketing calls suddenly decreased while "long distance service" calls suddenly increased. Interesting to say the least...

-spec

[Gabriel]

See, it's not so much the telephone calls that I have found intrusive, because I have no problem yelling a reverberative "Fuc& You" over the phone before hitting the Cancel button. Every telemarketer in the world will hear me say that, if they call me, and in a sense, that makes me feel better. My problem is the spam. I have no recourse other than to delete this unwanted festering pile of garbage everyday when I get home. It used to be that I could hit "Block Sender" and it would go away, or that ever recurring "Click here to Unsubscribe" BS that these emails hit you with. Personally, I spend more time on the net than on the phone. I would rather my phone, with the caller ID that I can identify unwanted calls on, ring off the hook, than my Outlook get bogged down with 452 emails which I did not solicit come pouring into my inbox on a nightly basis. Nothing says "I love the internet" more than sifting through a centuries worth of email looking for the one order confirmation you were waiting for, or your sisters sonogram of her first born. There is no form of email protection I have come up with to protect me from that shite, so if I signed up for the DNC list, it is only so I can have more time to sift through this garbage.

[Drake]

My solution is to have two email addresses. A Hotmail one for signing up for stuff, and my main one for everything important. Just have important stuff forwarded to my main and all the spam goes to the hotmail.

[Kabooka]

Originally posted by Drake
My solution is to have two email addresses. A Hotmail one for signing up for stuff, and my main one for everything important. Just have important stuff forwarded to my main and all the spam goes to the hotmail.

I use spammotel.com - it generates a random email address and then forwards it to the account that you register with. I don't think there is a limit to the number of email addresses that you generate. You then determine a prefix that will be attached to each email, that way you can set up a rule to either file or delete the mail. It also keeps track of message traffic to each generated address/

[speculative]

I have decided to simply pick up the phone, and say in my best "voice from beyond the grave" tone, "7 days."

Anyone see The Ring? ;)

-spec

[Farabomb]

Anyone see The Ring?

It's sitting on the top of my monitor. Gonna try and get around to watching it this weekend. :D

[Drake]

Very freaky movie :eek: Best horror film I've seen.

[speculative]

Originally posted by Farabomb
It's sitting on the top of my monitor. Gonna try and get around to watching it this weekend. :D

Don't watch it alone! :eek: I think it's only rated PG-13, but it's definitely the scariest film I've seen yet. Off to catch "28 days later" this weekend if I can find it in a theater around here. That should be another good N horrifying flick.

You'll enjoy the movie I bet Farabomb - not only is the whole thing suspensful and played out kind of like a mystery flick, but the ending is greatly twisted. :D

-spec

[Drake]

Is it just me, or has this thread been hijacked? :P

[Synthohol]

Way!
thats ok, better here than in the air!!