Hooray For Jon Leibowitz

FTC to ban most telemarketing ‘robocalls’ Sept. 1

“American consumers have made it crystal clear that few things annoy them more than the billions of commercial telemarketing robocalls they receive every year.” (Robocall = recorded telephone spam)

This is amazing and impressive to me on a couple of different levels. For one, Mr. Leibowitz is a bureaucrat (not just any bureaucrat, he’s in charge of the FTC). It seems to this lil’ ole country boy that for the last several decades, a prerequisite for being in Government is that your only concern for your constituents is obtaining more of their money, and eroding their civil liberties as much as possible. Mr. Leibowitz sure seems to defy that.

If you read my recent article, Don’t Call Me, I’ll Call You, you know that I didn’t come right out and call telemarketers bottom feeders and scum, but I think I made my feelings pretty clear. I absolutely, totally, completely support the ‘curtailing of free enterprise’ if it means that “Daisy” from the “carpet cleaners” will stop calling my business number several times a week.

Sadly, this new law will not terminate-with-extreme-prejudice the perpetrators of spam phone calls, but it will clearly define their activities as illegal and impose a $16,000 fine — per call. (With this formula, the “carpet cleaners” folks would be dinged $1.6 million just for their calls to me! Ha!)

In a nutshell, the ban stops spam calls unless the telemarketer has written permission from a customer that he or she wants to receive these calls. What kind of loon would willingly do that? If you want the full skinny, here’s the link, Federal Trade Commission rules. To read the Associated Press news story, click here.

I hope that there will be the action and enforcement promised, Mr. Leibowitz. I, for one, support you.

Copyright 2007-9 © Tech Paul. All rights reserved. post to jaanix

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