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Surprises

by Mike Masnick

Wed, Oct 1st 2003 10:36am





Many DMA Execs On The Do Not Call List

from the why-was-it-so-easy-to-find-out? dept

Some news was made last week when it was discovered that the judge who blocked the national "do not call" list had his home phone number on the list as well. Now, it turns out that, many executives at the Direct Marketing Association (the main group fighting the list) have their own phone numbers on the list. One executive denied that he had put his number on the list, and said that it shows that the system for putting numbers on the list is not set up properly, since someone can effectively "forge" a phone number on the list. He suggests (perhaps correctly) that it was done to embarrass him. Others, however, say they proudly signed up themselves and don't see why there's anything wrong with that (though, one exec refuses to give her name for fear of getting fired). The bigger question, to me, though is why the list is so easily accessible to anyone trying to find out who is on the list?

6 Comments | Leave a Comment..


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  1.  

    No Subject Given

    identicon
    Ed Halley, Oct 1st, 2003 @ 10:53am

    This isn't the "I Want to be Anonymous" list, it's the "Do Not Call" list. Telemarketers have to download this list. Even if it's just phone numbers, you already know a few name/number pairs to compare.

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]

  2.  

    Because They Have To Send it Out

    identicon
    sedavis, Oct 1st, 2003 @ 1:36pm

    Um.. In order for everyone to know who to block, the list has to be published, thus it wouldn't be to hard to get. Here is a really evil idea -> anyone who want access to 50 million active phone number and the names that go with them now have it. If the DNC list were to get killed (it won't) that could really backfire on everyone (including me) that signed up. You know what spammers would do with a list of email addresses in the same situation. They telemarketers would get some pretty annoyed responses, though.

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]

  3.  

    Re: Because They Have To Send it Out

    icon
    Mike (profile), Oct 1st, 2003 @ 1:39pm

    But couldn't they have set it up in a way that you couldn't just find out who was on the list? In other words, submit your own list against ours, and we'll tell you which #s to remove... or something along those lines.

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]

  4.  

    Re: Because They Have To Send it Out

    identicon
    jburst, Oct 1st, 2003 @ 1:55pm

    Mike, isn't that effectively the same thing? So the telemarketer sends the FTC every phone number, gets back a pruned list, and does a diff against the original.

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]

  5.  

    Re: Because They Have To Send it Out

    icon
    Mike (profile), Oct 1st, 2003 @ 2:21pm

    Slightly different. With my system (a) you can't just look up someone and see if they're on the list and (b) you don't get names associated with numbers. You could just find out the numbers of who was on the list.

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]

  6.  

    Re: Because They Have To Send it Out

    identicon
    Beck, Oct 1st, 2003 @ 6:59pm

    I think that's how it works. You tell them a number, they tell you if it is on the list. If you can get the phone number of a famous person you can submit the number to see if it is on the list.

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]


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