p2pnet news view Freedom | P2P:- Ottawa law professor and Net expert Dr Michael Geist wants anyone who  knows about companies which are ignoring Canada’s Do Not Call List, designed to stop  telephone marketing spam, to let him know.

Geist’s request follows a report by p2pnet’s Devil’s Advocate accusing Bell Canada, the supposed operator of the DNCL, as being one of the worst offenders.

“Part of me … kept believing Bell Canada desperately needed to rebuild its public image (to restore some of its fallen customer base and sell the company), and would do the honourable thing for its own sake – operate the DNCL the way Canadians clearly demanded,” he said, adding:

“Yeah, I know. What the hell was I thinking?!”

Now, “Criticism over the do-not-call list has begun to mount as Canadians grow increasingly frustrated with a system that was designed to fail from the beginning,” Geist blogs, going on »»»

As I have long argued, the do-not-call list was better characterized as the do-not-hesitate-to-call list given the number of exceptions and jurisdictional loopholes. 

Sure enough, CTV and Global have covered the poor performance of the do-not-call list this week, noting the exceptions, the jurisdictional problems, and the fear that the list itself is being misused by out-of-country operators.

With nearly six million numbers registered, killing the list is not option.  Rather, the solution lies in fixing the obvious problems (scaling back the exceptions, working with the U.S. on the jurisdictional problems) and using the CRTC’s enforcement powers to levy some tough penalties for those that violate the law.

P2PNet.net also posts a troubling report that indicates that companies included on my iOptOut service are not respecting the opt-out requests despite a letter from the CRTC indicating that such requests are enforceable.  The P2PNet.net story singles out Bell for non-compliance.  If others have experienced similar cases of non-compliance, please let me know.

Stay tuned.

Devil’s Advocate – The arrogant monster called Bell, January 15, 2009
Geist blogs – Do-Not-Call List Criticism Mounts as Unwanted Calls Continue, January 16, 2009

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This entry was posted on Friday, January 16th, 2009 at 10:52 am and is filed under Freedom, P2P. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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