TELECOM Digest OnLine - Sorted: Re: Urban Legends Reference Pages: Politics (Celling Your Soul)

Re: Urban Legends Reference Pages: Politics (Celling Your Soul)

Danny Burstein (dannyb@panix.com)
Sat, 11 Dec 2004 22:26:53 UTC

In <telecom23.591.1@telecom-digest.org> Marcus Didius Falco
<falco_marcus_didius@yahoo.co.uk> writes:

(I've edited and summarized the key points )

[ snip ]

> Starting Jan 1, 2005, all cell phone numbers will be made public to
> telemarketing firms.

Once again, if you've _ever_ given out your cellphone number to pretty
much any business, whether it's your credit card company, or your
local tire fix place, or East Cupcake Bar and Detox Camp, your number
_is already_ in a database and readily available to a hefty number of
telemarketers. And others.

> According to the National Do Not Call List, you have until Dec 15,
> 2004 to get on the national "Do Not Call List" for cell phones. You
> can either call 1-888-382-1222 from the cell phone that you wish to
> have put on the "do not call list" or you can do it online at
> www.donotcall.gov .

You can add any and all numbers whenever you like. There's a lag time
before they're in the database, so the earlier the better.

> phone directories and directory assistance services, and protections
> have been put in place to restrict telemarketing calls to cell phones.

Those protections _remain_ in place.

> directory information is not supposed to be supplied to telemarketers,
> and because FCC regulations already in place block the bulk of
> telemarketing calls to cell phones).

eyup.

> Some versions of the exhortation to cell phone users to add their
> names to the Do Not Call Registry erroneously state there is a 15
> December 2004 deadline for getting listed. Says Lois Greisman, the
> Federal Trade Commission official who oversees the anti-telemarketing
> registry: "There is no deadline; there never has been a deadline to
> register."

Close enough, but since htere's a lag time before the number you enter
gets into the active database, there's no reaason to wait.

> 200,000 new numbers a week. Yet in the final week of November 2004,
> nearly 1 million new subscribers were added, and in the first week of
> December 2004, that figure jumped to 2 million. At this point in time,
> 69 million phone numbers are contained in the registry.

Which is fascinating compared to how many people, say, voted in the
election ...

_____________________________________________________

Knowledge may be power, but communications is the key
dannyb@panix.com
[to foil spammers, my address has been double rot-13 encoded]

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