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I made it to this quote: > "We have a strong robocalling enforcement program" ...and literally could not make it further. The FTC may have legal or technolog

I made it to this quote: > "We have a strong robocalling enforcement program" ...and literally could not make it further. The FTC may have legal or technological problems not of their making, and by some arcane measure may have a "strong" enforcement program, but whatever they are doing is by no means effective.

quaquaqua1 7y ago
Allow me to translate the government speak for you, "You all have no real way of forcing us to do more currently, so we are going to avoid making a blunder and simply we will say we are super commited to the idea that we are having literally any effect at all"
- endymi0n 7y ago
  For me, it’s incomprehensible how toothless US institutions have become over the past decade — and even more, how okay the American public is with that. There are no robocalls in Germany, where I reside. It’s a completely non-existing problem. And the FTC would have all the power to stop this right now instead of complaining about it. If you don‘t believe me, look at what the CAN-SPAM act did to corporate communication (worldwide). It‘s as easy as slapping a 10.000$ fine on every single robocall that‘s either made by a participant or relayed through an operator network. Problem solved in days. But hey, it‘s „good for business“ (while probably bad for overall GDP), that explanation seems to always work to keep Americans at bay.
  - raverbashing 7y ago
    I'm not even sure it's "bad for overall GDP", I'd say the average american has to spend a lot of money on BS services like credit protection, robocall protection, tax filling services, crazy prices for common drugs and other rackets that wouldn't exist if regulation was better
    - rectang 7y ago
      Somebody makes that money. It is very important to this small but influential group that individual American citizens continue to be ripped off. Those people spend a certain amount of money via the legalized bribery of campaign contributions to ensure that the government remains incompetent at tasks like reining in robocalls.
    - gandalfian 7y ago
      That's not the GDP you are looking for. Its a miss allocation of resources. You might as well build a ten ton screw for all the benefit achieved.
    - lonelappde 7y ago
      Right,the problem is that GDP is a bad metric that only counts dollar spend and doesn't count destruction of value via externalities.
  - gandalfian 7y ago
    I wonder how much of that is more enforcement and how much just the language barrier insulating you from millions of low paid english speaking developing world workers trying to scam you? Possibly slightly higher call charges to Germany as well.
    - pjc50 7y ago
      Robocalls aren't a problem in the UK either. There's only a small amount of telemarketing ("have you been involved in an accident", "PPI", "free insulation"). Occasionally we get the PC scams too. But fully automated calls are vanishingly rare.
      - gandalfian 7y ago
        Are you not using a landline? Because I and everyone I know get a dozen "your BT line is being disconnected press one for more information" calls a week. The "your computer is infected" calls seem to be going out of fashion mind. Are these not robocalls? The UK callers selling a free boiler or double glazing are only once a month mind so thats something. Perhaps it's because we are on the phone book? Anyway our experience is very different from yours.
        tialaramex 7y ago
        Did you register to say you _don't_ want random calls? Sounds like you probably didn't. The UK has a law that says you mustn't call people who don't want calls. Obviously "Never call me again" makes that clear the first time, but there's a (marketing industry operated but government regulated) scheme called the Telephone Preference Service (tpsonline.org.uk) to let you say you don't want unsolicited calls from anybody. They don't really advertise it (why would they) but they are obliged to operate it or else the government will make up its own rules that would presumably be far tougher, like maybe "Nobody wants these bloody calls, knock it off". Obviously there are still straight up _crooks_ but the thing about such a Do No Call list is it's also full of people who _hate_ telemarketers. When I was a student (~20 years ago) we had a pinned up script for timewasting telemarketers. We could waste five, ten, fifteen minutes of their time and they were never going to make a sale. And their calls were illegal anyway, so now they're losing money on a crime and when we hang up they're getting reported for the call on top of wasting all that time. So the effect is it's not very profitable AND it's illegal. I haven't had a robocall in maybe a decade.
  - asciident 7y ago
    What did the CAN-SPAM act do? From my perspective, I remember a lot of talk, and in the end a few emails added unsubscribe notices at the bottom (but generally not the spammers).
    - stevekemp 7y ago
      Did nothing to halt SPAM in any appreciable sense, but did lead to a lot of spammers adding a footer to their mails mentioning that they weren't SPAM, and that they were legitimate mails - referencing the act.
  - lisper 7y ago
    A significant portion of the American public has bought into the idea that money is the ultimate quality metric: if you're making money, you must ipso facto be doing something right. Conversely, if you are poor, or if you are doing something that prevents someone from making money, that is bad. This is one of the reasons Donald Trump is so popular: he's richer than you, so ipso facto he must be doing something right. He must be smarter than you, because if he weren't he wouldn't be richer than you. This mindset is evident even here on HN where, for example, "Move fast and break things" is an accepted item of conventional wisdom. Moving fast and breaking things are not good in and of themselves, they are good because if you move fast and break things you can make more money than people who move more deliberately and don't break things. (Until, that is, your airplanes start to fall out of the sky.) That's the reason that the U.S. government won't move against robocallers: they are making money, so ipso facto they must be doing something right. If you move against the robocallers, that's the beginning of a slippery slope to questioning the idea that money is the ultimate quality metric, and that will completely undermine the foundation (such as it is) of the current power structure.
    - cmurf 7y ago
      It sounds a lot like prosperity theology too. This was argued against in the book of Job when Satan took the position in his bet with God, to the effect of "Job is only loyal because you shower him with riches and nothing ever goes wrong for him". It's ironic how popular prosperity theology is with American Evangelicals.
      - lisper 7y ago
        The prosperity-theologists have their scripture as well: Ecclesiastes 10:19 This is the problem with theocracy: you can find a scripture to justify just about anything.
      - rolltiide 7y ago
        Prosperity preaching is heavily ingrained in US culture But flaunting wealth and saying your acumen caused it turns out to be effective all over the world because people want it. A lot - most - wealthy people dont even know they have enough money to have a decadent lifestyle and dont know where to start. Most are not consciously avoiding something flashy but are also constrained by their peers from being accepted for doing anything different. So there is still a lust for people that can attract attention based on their perceived wealth.
  - lonelappde 7y ago
    Spam was stopped by free market competition for email accounts. You still get tens of spam messages each day, but you don't see them because your spam filter is good. Telecom monopoly is the reason robocalls still exist. This problem's solution was found a century ago with the Sherman Antitrust Act, but the government refuses to enforce it.

quaquaqua1 7y ago

Allow me to translate the government speak for you, "You all have no real way of forcing us to do more currently, so we are going to avoid making a blunder and simply we will say we are super commited to the idea that we are having literally any effect at all"

endymi0n 7y ago
For me, it’s incomprehensible how toothless US institutions have become over the past decade — and even more, how okay the American public is with that. There are no robocalls in Germany, where I reside. It’s a completely non-existing problem. And the FTC would have all the power to stop this right now instead of complaining about it. If you don‘t believe me, look at what the CAN-SPAM act did to corporate communication (worldwide). It‘s as easy as slapping a 10.000$ fine on every single robocall that‘s either made by a participant or relayed through an operator network. Problem solved in days. But hey, it‘s „good for business“ (while probably bad for overall GDP), that explanation seems to always work to keep Americans at bay.
- raverbashing 7y ago
  I'm not even sure it's "bad for overall GDP", I'd say the average american has to spend a lot of money on BS services like credit protection, robocall protection, tax filling services, crazy prices for common drugs and other rackets that wouldn't exist if regulation was better
  - rectang 7y ago
    Somebody makes that money. It is very important to this small but influential group that individual American citizens continue to be ripped off. Those people spend a certain amount of money via the legalized bribery of campaign contributions to ensure that the government remains incompetent at tasks like reining in robocalls.
  - gandalfian 7y ago
    That's not the GDP you are looking for. Its a miss allocation of resources. You might as well build a ten ton screw for all the benefit achieved.
  - lonelappde 7y ago
    Right,the problem is that GDP is a bad metric that only counts dollar spend and doesn't count destruction of value via externalities.
- gandalfian 7y ago
  I wonder how much of that is more enforcement and how much just the language barrier insulating you from millions of low paid english speaking developing world workers trying to scam you? Possibly slightly higher call charges to Germany as well.
  - pjc50 7y ago
    Robocalls aren't a problem in the UK either. There's only a small amount of telemarketing ("have you been involved in an accident", "PPI", "free insulation"). Occasionally we get the PC scams too. But fully automated calls are vanishingly rare.
    - gandalfian 7y ago
      Are you not using a landline? Because I and everyone I know get a dozen "your BT line is being disconnected press one for more information" calls a week. The "your computer is infected" calls seem to be going out of fashion mind. Are these not robocalls? The UK callers selling a free boiler or double glazing are only once a month mind so thats something. Perhaps it's because we are on the phone book? Anyway our experience is very different from yours.
      - tialaramex 7y ago
        Did you register to say you _don't_ want random calls? Sounds like you probably didn't. The UK has a law that says you mustn't call people who don't want calls. Obviously "Never call me again" makes that clear the first time, but there's a (marketing industry operated but government regulated) scheme called the Telephone Preference Service (tpsonline.org.uk) to let you say you don't want unsolicited calls from anybody. They don't really advertise it (why would they) but they are obliged to operate it or else the government will make up its own rules that would presumably be far tougher, like maybe "Nobody wants these bloody calls, knock it off". Obviously there are still straight up _crooks_ but the thing about such a Do No Call list is it's also full of people who _hate_ telemarketers. When I was a student (~20 years ago) we had a pinned up script for timewasting telemarketers. We could waste five, ten, fifteen minutes of their time and they were never going to make a sale. And their calls were illegal anyway, so now they're losing money on a crime and when we hang up they're getting reported for the call on top of wasting all that time. So the effect is it's not very profitable AND it's illegal. I haven't had a robocall in maybe a decade.
- asciident 7y ago
  What did the CAN-SPAM act do? From my perspective, I remember a lot of talk, and in the end a few emails added unsubscribe notices at the bottom (but generally not the spammers).
  - stevekemp 7y ago
    Did nothing to halt SPAM in any appreciable sense, but did lead to a lot of spammers adding a footer to their mails mentioning that they weren't SPAM, and that they were legitimate mails - referencing the act.
- lisper 7y ago
  A significant portion of the American public has bought into the idea that money is the ultimate quality metric: if you're making money, you must ipso facto be doing something right. Conversely, if you are poor, or if you are doing something that prevents someone from making money, that is bad. This is one of the reasons Donald Trump is so popular: he's richer than you, so ipso facto he must be doing something right. He must be smarter than you, because if he weren't he wouldn't be richer than you. This mindset is evident even here on HN where, for example, "Move fast and break things" is an accepted item of conventional wisdom. Moving fast and breaking things are not good in and of themselves, they are good because if you move fast and break things you can make more money than people who move more deliberately and don't break things. (Until, that is, your airplanes start to fall out of the sky.) That's the reason that the U.S. government won't move against robocallers: they are making money, so ipso facto they must be doing something right. If you move against the robocallers, that's the beginning of a slippery slope to questioning the idea that money is the ultimate quality metric, and that will completely undermine the foundation (such as it is) of the current power structure.
  - cmurf 7y ago
    It sounds a lot like prosperity theology too. This was argued against in the book of Job when Satan took the position in his bet with God, to the effect of "Job is only loyal because you shower him with riches and nothing ever goes wrong for him". It's ironic how popular prosperity theology is with American Evangelicals.
    - lisper 7y ago
      The prosperity-theologists have their scripture as well: Ecclesiastes 10:19 This is the problem with theocracy: you can find a scripture to justify just about anything.
    - rolltiide 7y ago
      Prosperity preaching is heavily ingrained in US culture But flaunting wealth and saying your acumen caused it turns out to be effective all over the world because people want it. A lot - most - wealthy people dont even know they have enough money to have a decadent lifestyle and dont know where to start. Most are not consciously avoiding something flashy but are also constrained by their peers from being accepted for doing anything different. So there is still a lust for people that can attract attention based on their perceived wealth.
- lonelappde 7y ago
  Spam was stopped by free market competition for email accounts. You still get tens of spam messages each day, but you don't see them because your spam filter is good. Telecom monopoly is the reason robocalls still exist. This problem's solution was found a century ago with the Sherman Antitrust Act, but the government refuses to enforce it.