Do-Not-Call List: One year old …
p2pnet news view Freedom | P2P:- This month marks the one-year anniversary of the launch of Canada’s do-not-call list. Over the past 12 months, millions of Canadians have registered their numbers on the list and filed hundreds of thousands of complaints with the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission, which is tasked with enforcing the law.
While the CRTC has found itself subject to considerable criticism for investigating only a small percentage of complaints and levying just a handful of fines for do-not-call violations, a review of tens of thousands of complaints obtained under the Access to Information Act reveals a potentially bigger problem.
Many of Canada’s best-known companies have been the target of frequent complaints, yet are not subject to investigation due to the large number of exceptions found in the law. This has led to genuine dismay, with many people using a comment section in the complaint form to register their disappointment with the do-not-call list.
Working together with University of Ottawa students Sean Murtha and Frances Munn, I recently reviewed more than 60,000 complaints released by the CRTC. The complaints were lodged in late 2008 and early 2009 using the do-not-call list’s Internet-based complaints mechanism.
In each case, the complaint included all relevant information with the exception of the complainant’s name and telephone number, which were excluded for privacy reasons.
There were hundreds of complaints about automated calls promising cruise vacations or lawn care services. But the undisputed leader among reputable companies was Bell Canada, which alone was the subject of nearly 1,000 complaints. In fact, the wireless sector had the distinction of taking the top three spots, with Rogers and Telus ranking second and third respectively.
Hundreds of complaints were against Canada’s top financial institutions and retailers including RBC, CIBC, Scotiabank, TD Canada Trust and Sears.
Businesses exempt under the law similarly faced numerous complaints. For example, Canadians lodged complaints against 27 different newspapers, despite the fact newspapers enjoy a full exception under the do-not-call legislation.
The sheer number of complaints against a who’s who of the business community places the spotlight on the gap between what Canadians expect the do-not-call list to cover and what it actually does. Many Canadians reasonably anticipated that placing their phone number on the do-not-call list would mean that the telemarketing calls from telephone companies, banks, retailers, newspapers and charities would stop.
Yet the law contains large loopholes that let the calls continue. Bell Canada may lead the way on do-not-call complaints, but it seems likely the Bell calls qualified under the business relationship exception that allows a business to continue to call a customer for a full 18 months after they leave the company.
In other words, the law does not restrict calls that try to win back customers or sell existing customers other products or services.
Similarly, there are blanket exceptions for survey companies, political parties, charities and newspapers. All of those organizations are permitted to continue calling until specifically asked to stop.
The result is that a system designed to restore consumer confidence may actually undermine it – with many feeling helpless to stop unwanted telemarketing calls.
The enforcement side of the do-not-call list may need improvement but the more critical change is the elimination of overly broad exceptions that turn the do-not-call list into the do-not-hesitate-to-call list.
Michael Geist – Michael Geist’s Blog
[Geist is the Canada Research Chair in Internet and E-commerce Law at the University of Ottawa. He can be reached by email at mgeist @ uottawa dot ca]
[Also see Do Not Call List violater begs for mercy and 4 new Do Not Call List violators named.]
First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win ~ Mahatma Gandhi
October, 2009
Use free p2pnet newsfeeds for your site. It’s really easy!
Subscribe to p2pnet.net | | rss feed: http://p2pnet.net/p2p.rss | | Mobile – http://p2pnet.net/index-wml.php
Net access blocked by government restrictions? Use Psiphon from the Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto. Go here for details.
October 13th, 2009 at 4:07 pm
While I have no doubt the the US’s version is just as useless, why have a do-not-call list that has a hundred exceptions? Whats the point?
October 13th, 2009 at 4:35 pm
Not exactly news to me (as you all should know at this point).
But, what of iOptOut.ca?? Michael completely omits any mention of his own site, designed to address the infinite exceptions, and launched at the same time as the DNCL.
The last I heard, Bell itself first put up resistance to the installation of iOptOut, challenging its applicability, the CRTC mandated honouring this site’s agenda, and then Bell (who we need to remember IS the DNCL operator) ignored it anyway. I asked Michael about this quite some time ago, and he said there where things happening, but that he wasn’t in a position to talk about it. So, not to interfere with what he was doing, I stopped all the writing I was doing to my MPs (not that any of it was doing any good anyway), along with a few other activities on the subject, and waited for a sign from Michael.
Michael?!…
October 13th, 2009 at 7:30 pm
“The last I heard, Bell itself first put up resistance to the installation of iOptOut”
Not only Bell but many many charities and other organizations.
I know of one “entity” who received thousands of iOPTouts (not Bell). The ignored them last year. This year, no clue.
October 13th, 2009 at 11:45 pm
A new law designed to stop phone harrassment by big companies i useless because it’s full of holes? Would that be due to the $$$ lobbying efforts by said companies I wonder??
October 14th, 2009 at 11:34 am
“Not only Bell but many many charities and other organizations.”
Yes, of course, but that wasn’t the point I made.
iOptOut was simply a mechanism for people to do, en masse, what they’re legally entitled to do about the exceptions – send proper notice to all of those excepted to be removed from their call lists, regardless of exception status. It was then incumbent upon Bell and the CRTC to honour these requests by enforcing them.
Bell is the OPERATOR of the DNCL, and yet the one who put up the biggest formal resistance to iOptOut. Even though the CRTC supposedly mandated iOptOut’s acceptance, Bell thumbs its collective nose at iOptOut by both ignoring complaints associated with it, as well as being the biggest violator of it. (As reiterated in the above article.)
This matter, which is what I was referring to, doesn’t seem to have surfaced since.
If the designated DNCL operator itself won’t honour a simple, legal tool as iOptOut, what hope in hell do you have of anyone else honouring any part of the DNCL legislation?