The Federal Trade Commission’s (FTC) National Do Not Call Registry is more popular than anyone imagined. More than 28 million Americans have registered their phone numbers with the government agency in less than a month. It should surprise no one that the telemarketeers aren’t especially enamored of the registry, claiming it violates their Constitutional right of free expression. And then the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) implemented a similar system.
Back in January, the American Teleservices Association filed a lawsuit against the FTC and yesterday the trade organization submitted a petition seeking judicial review of the FCC action, claiming “regulatory overkill.”
“Unfortunately, the FCC ignored its obligations under the federal law and the Constitution to carefully balance the privacy interests of consumers with the First Amendment rights of legitimate telemarketers,” said Tim Searcy, executive director of the American Teleservices Association. “The law directed the FCC to avoid solutions that had an adverse economic impact, yet the agency consistently opted for the most restrictive approaches while ignoring less burdensome regulations.”
The trade association’s media release goes on to claim that the do-not-call registries will cost the U.S. economy up to two million jobs currently held by “hard-to-employ workers.”
The U.S. courts have traditionally held that commercial speech by corporations is afforded significantly less protection than individual speech. Additionally, two courts have recently upheld laws prohibiting “junk faxes.”
Getting 28 million Americans to agree on something is no simple task; getting them to take action on that consensus is astonishing.
Next up—spammers. A similar approach to spam would do little to stem the flow of the unwanted bits, of course, but it would instantly address the legitimacy question of all unsolicited bulk email. Like the proverbial bus-load of lawyers at the bottom of a lake, it’s a good start.
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