Just a few days shy of the Oct. 1 effective date for the Do Not Call List, a U.S. District Court Judge in Oklahoma struck down the list on the basis that the Federal Trade Commission lacks congressional authority to develop and maintain it.
Do Not Call is the federal government's initiative to allow individuals the right to opt out from receiving telemarketing calls. Just when you thought you'd get a single dinner without a call from AT&T (NYSE:T), some no-name mortgage company, or someone with a time-share offer in the Poconos, it looks as if the telemarketers have lived on to dial another day.
Judge Lee West determined that Congress gave funding to the FTC to manage the list, but has failed to grant it the authority to implement such a list. No regulatory authority may make determinations in the public interest without specific authority granted by Congress. The FTC must decide whether to either appeal the ruling or go to Congress to have it grant the necessary authority to enact the list. Either route will necessarily cause a delay in implementation. Heavy users of telemarketing such as the telecom carriers, as well as equipment providers like eOn Communications (NASDAQ:EONC), the Direct Marketing Association, and millions of telemarketing employees are certainly breathing somewhat easier today.
As an aside, two weeks ago I spent a quiet evening at home as my family had gone out with friends. Know how many telemarketing calls I received over a five-hour period? Thirty-one. My libertarian tendencies inform my belief that the government has no business developing, keeping, and administering such a list, but you can bet your bottom dollar that a few more evenings with a telemarketing call coming in every 10 minutes for hours on end might increase my willingness to bend my principles. Denial of a legitimate business simply doesn't seem to be part of the mandate of the government, and whether or not industry estimates of 2 million lost jobs as a result are accurate, there should be no question that there will be an employment effect -- and it will be negative. On the other hand -- 31 calls?!? That's absurd.
The problem in all of this is that many years ago the powers that be botched the concept of telephone number ownership. In any situation, if you conduct business using my property, I ought to have the right to bill you for the privilege. If individuals owned their telephone numbers, they would be able to charge telemarketers for the right to use them. You call me about "doing a storm window project in my area?" Sure, I'll talk to you. That'll be $1.
But for now the best hope for those looking to get some semblance of peace in their homes seems to be the appeals process. Many Congressmen, naturally, were indignant at the court's suggestion that they screwed something up. Or possibly the Direct Marketing Association should be taken at its word that it recognizes that 50 million American households have made known that they're sick and tired of its practices and make changes on its own.
Regardless of the end result, don't expect things to get quieter on Oct. 1.
