Don't Call Us, We'll Call You

from the take-a-stand dept

A great opinion piece ripping apart the arguments of the Direct Marketing Association as they try to stop the national Do-Not-Call list from going forward. He goes through the basic arguments that their right to free speech stops at our front door, but then makes some more great points and challenges many of their assumptions. They argue that people love telemarketers since they buy $660 billion worth of goods via telemarketing - which he figures out to mean $3,573 per person. He wonders who is buying his share. More to the point, he wonders, even if some people are buying ten times that, shouldn't the people who don't want it be able to opt-out? Even the DMA's own "fact sheet" says they don't want to spend time marketing to those who don't like to shop by phone. Shouldn't they be encouraging this list? It would mean that the people they do bother during dinner are much more likely targets. It's like getting a free targeted leads list. However, the best response concerns the DMA's claim that the do-not-call list would throw thousands of Americans out of work, and destroy our economy. While first wondering why he never heard about how the American economy rises and falls with the fate of the telemarketing industry, he makes the analogy: "This is like arguing against the polio vaccine on behalf of America's wheelchair manufacturers."

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