| Comment Number: | OL-101688 |
| Received: | 11/27/2004 7:13:15 PM |
| Organization: | |
| Commenter: | Elizabeth Hillringhouse |
| State: | LA |
| Subject: | Trade Regulation Rule on Telemarketing Sales |
| Title: | Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, Request for Comment |
| CFR Citation: | 16 CFR Part 310 |
| No Attachments |
Comments:
The National Do Not Call Registry was a wonderful step toward personal privacy. It gives participants the freedom to sleep through a morning without a phone call from a random company trying to sell a product that if the consumer had wanted they could have purchased without a phone call. This is especially meaningful for those that work abnormal hours, such as the night shift, and try to get their sleep during the day. In the society that we live in, we are bombarded with attempted sales at almost every moment of every day. Television, radio, email, and the internet sometimes seem to consist of nothing but commercials. Opening this loophole is the telephone equivalent of encouraging SPAM. One message is created, and then sent out to thousands of users. It costs the business next to nothing. It also opens the door to fraud, since it would be a simple matter for an illicit person to copy an existing and known message, and just change the phone number or website that is referenced. Again, this is the same situation as we now have with SPAM. Restricting the messages to a company that a consumer has an established business relationship with is meaningless. Companies establish relationships with other companies to get around this requirement. My business relationship with credit card x has nothing to do with purchasing magazines from them. I encourage the FCC to keep the rules as they are, without creating any loopholes. The whole point of the measure was to provide the average home telephone user with some privacy and peace, and opening this loophole would be a step backward in this matter.