8 ms·
I'm all for this...but can we just ban telemarketing entirely? Why is that even allowed? I've always thought that the law should be written such that telemarket
by darawk 8y ago
I'm all for this...but can we just ban telemarketing entirely? Why is that even allowed? I've always thought that the law should be written such that telemarketing is legal, but if you engage in it, it is no longer illegal to murder you. You can do it, but you lose your murder protection.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- earbrazier 8y agoI've heard that robocalls are illegal in Germany. It would be difficult to pass a law banning them in the United States because the people writing the laws are themselves heavy users of robocalls as a part of their election campaigns.
- petepete 8y agoThey are illegal in the UK too, but the law doesn't stop calls coming in from abroad or from marketing companies routing through throwaway UK SIP providers. I'd just like to see phone companies made to have a free option where customers can turn off all calls from unidentifiable/withheld numbers. That would be easy to implement and stop a lot of the problem.
- giancarlostoro 8y agoI never answer a call if the number is not saved on my phone. If it's truly important leave a voicemail, I will get back to you if I have to.
- petepete 8y agoI was referring to landlines but yes, on mobile, I agree entirely. The more recent Android dialer correctly identifies spam most times.
- giancarlostoro 8y agoWe ditched our land line about 10 years ago so I totally forgot about that. Although I remember having one of those phones that had the digital address book on it, maybe you have a different model. Also I have T-Mobile and it tells me when a caller is "likely a scammer" and they even let me outright block those callers.
- pcmaffey 8y agoYeah I recently permanently set my phone to Do Not Disturb, which blocks all calls from people not in my favorites. It’s been great
- 0xfeba 8y agoYep pretty much the same here. I just leave it on vibrate. I have been getting more and more spam calls though, I should try DnD. I think ringtones are distracting and totally unnecessary, with a few exceptions. My phone is either in my pocket, or on my desk nearby to where I'll see it ring. I don't understand people who leave it on loud at work (or worse, leave it on loud then leave the phone at their desk). It's really inconsiderate. They are probably oblivious though, without someone mentioning it to them.
- hackermailman 8y agoIn Canada political campaigns will rent from allied political parties in the US their robocall army to escape domestic laws. A favorite trick now is to relentlessly phone at annoying hours and impersonate the rival "Stay on the line for an important message from (insert rival politician)" in hopes they anger you enough to not vote for said rival.
- BonesJustice 8y agoIt’s already illegal to place robocalls to cell phones (under TCPA). It’s also illegal to robodial any number on the Do Not Call list, but unlike the TCPA, there is a carve out for political campaigning. Thanks, Congress! Of course, neither does much good when the laws are nearly impossible to enforce. Thanks to caller ID spoofing, it’s usually impossible to tell who actually called you, so good luck collecting damages.
- pc86 8y agoIf you really wanted to find out you could just ask the phone company, they know the real number/identity of the person calling you, or at the very least a layer deeper than caller ID. It's not like caller ID spoofing makes you anonymous.
- BonesJustice 8y agoI think there are privacy regulations that prevent the phone company from deanonymizing a caller without a warrant. Or at least that’s the excuse I’ve heard cited before.
- bluGill 8y agoIf you are on the do not call list a warrant SHOULD be easy to get though.
- nkrisc 8y agoIt should at least require that a human initiates and terminates every single call.
- jrockway 8y agoWhat does that mean, exactly? Does the human have to whistle the DTMF frequencies into a handset to initiate the call, or can they use a machine that generates those tones when buttons are pressed? Can a machine automatically press the buttons? If so, how is that different from what is allowed today?
- undersuit 8y agoSome big wigs in Hollywood have locked down 99% of our devices so that we can't copy their HD video. I'm pretty sure most of us realize that actually limiting calls to only humans is strictly impossible, but what about getting it to about 99% human with some offenders that we can sue in court.
- nkrisc 8y agoFair enough, I could have been more specific. Instead of a dialer calling vast quantities of people and a telemarketer only connecting to the calls that actually go through, the telemarketer should be required to initiate the call (through whatever interface), wait to see if the recipient picks up, and then choose to end the call when they see fit. The point is to allow telemarketing but to keep it a fair and symmetrical affair. One person calling one other person as opposed to me being on the receiving end of hundreds of auto-dialed calls while the telemarketers only have to spend their time with the calls that succeed.
- tomc1985 8y agoThis is probably not the place to nitpick comments for legalese If I had my way the only legal phone call is one that begins and ends with a one-on-one conversation with a human, preferably one which the receiver has already met
- Retric 8y ago> Can a machine automatically press the buttons? No. What's hard about this, if a person presses a button that can cause 1 and only one call. You also can't have a machine listen to see if someone picks up then hand off to a person because a human was not listing at the start of the call.
- trumped 8y agoWhile you're at it, ban Spam endorsed by the federal government (USPS)... junk mailers even get rebates to fill up your mailbox.
- jermaustin1 8y agoWhile they are at it, also get rid of the spam car and debt consolidation loan mailers. If you opt-out, you also don't get mailers from AmEx on their newest metallic card, which I might want. But I don't need a loan from some unknown institution at near credit-card rates.
- Sohcahtoa82 8y agoI used to get snail mail almost daily from SoFi trying to get me to refinance my student loans with them. It was really annoying, especially since they wouldn't match my credit union's rates, despite my 810+ credit score. I wonder how much it cost them to send all those mailers. It was at least one a week for a couple years before I finally went to their website to opt out.
- paulie_a 8y agoI've wanted to go full Kramer and "unsubscribe" from the USPS. I let my box fill up for weeks and then everything goes into the trash.
- TallGuyShort 8y agoI know you're joking, but I (jokingly) considered a law that if you're using your cell phone and are involved in an accident, that accident is your fault and you must pay in excess of actual damages. The problem is of course all the gray areas where there was some emergency, or the unintended side effects of people getting hurt who weren't just being douchebags in traffic.
- Shivetya 8y agopoliticians at the Federal level excluded themselves from similar rules along with charities. if we can get them to not exclude themselves we might have a chance at blocking everything
- matty22 8y agoWhile we're at it, could we make it illegal for companies to fill my physical mailbox with garbage? Junk mail is a blight on the planet. It's literally just turning trees into garbage with no intermediary step of added value.
- wilde 8y agoBecause calling people is an important GOTV activity. They’re not going to write a law that hurts their ability to campaign.