Great News! No More Pesky Marketing Calls - Sign Up On The Canadian Do Not Call List
Tags: News
Here's the Canadian Do Not Call List www.lnnte-dncl.gc.ca It is scheduled to become active tomorrow. I'll be signing up for it asap. When this became available in the U.S, everyone I know signed up for it immediately and we couldn't be happier about it. Imagine, no more meals or life in general being interrupted by annoying, unsolicited calls. Yay!
Here's the Canadian Do Not Call List www.lnnte-dncl.gc.ca It is scheduled to become active tomorrow. I'll be signing up for it asap. When this became available in the U.S, everyone I know signed up for it immediately and we couldn't be happier about it. Imagine, no more meals or life in general being interrupted by annoying, unsolicited calls. Yay!
01 October 2008 UPDATE
Massive response swamps new do-not-call registry
Cassandra Drudi, with files from Sarah Schmidt Canwest News Service Wednesday, October 01, 2008
Canada's new do-not-call list became a do-not-answer registry yesterday when its website and phone lines were swamped by consumers anxious to free themselves of insistent calls from telemarketers.
By 1:30 p.m., 156,615 people had managed to register online and 61,586 by telephone. But another one million or more first-day callers couldn't get through, said an official with the Canadian Radio-television and Tele-communications Commission, which oversees the registry.
Denis Carmel said the number of those who endured failed online registration attempts is not yet known.
"You could say we're victims of our own success," the CRTC spokesman said.
Mr. Carmel blamed the busy signals and error messages on the "sheer volume" of hits to www.lnnte-dncl.gc.ca and calls to the 1-866-580-3625 toll-free line.
Duncan Petrie, 65, unsuccessfully tried calling the registry yesterday morning.
"I tried it half-a-dozen times," he said, surprised that after all the "hoopla" surrounding the list, its first day of action would yield such delays.
Mr. Petrie was one of many Ottawa-area residents frustrated by the delay.
"We waited for this program for over a year," one Citizen reader wrote. "It's finally introduced, but doesn't work."
Internet law expert Michael Geist said the demand should have been no surprise.
"Canadians have been clamouring for a do-not-call list for years."
Telemarketers have 31 days to remove a number from their lists after it has been registered on the national list, the result of legislation passed in 2005.
But registered charities, political parties, newspapers and companies that already have an "existing business relationship" with a consumer are exempted from the do-not-call list, as are organizations calling and faxing to businesses.
Also exempt are companies making calls for polls or market research, which the CRTC does not consider telemarketing.
The number of exceptions prompted Mr. Geist, the Canada research chair of Internet and e-commerce law at the University of Ottawa, to dub it the "do-not-hesitate-to-call list."
It's a bit of a disappointment that the registry encountered stumbling blocks on its first day, but the bigger disappointment is the number of companies outside of the list's jurisdiction, he said.
To complement the do-not-call list, Mr. Geist created iOptOut.ca, a free online service where people can identify individual companies not covered by the do-not-call list from whom they'd like to stop receiving phone calls. The website then sends opt-out requests on their behalf and the companies are obliged to stop contacting them, the website says.
After receiving complaints about the service from the Canadian Marketing Association and the Canadian Bankers Association, the CRTC ruled in June that opt-out requests submitted through the website were valid. To date, more than 50,000 people have used the service.
Those who did get through to the national registry yesterday were able to successfully place their phone numbers on the list, Mr. Carmel said.
The CRTC is working with Bell Canada, which operates the registry for the government, to increase bandwidth and site capacity, he said.
Since the Federal Trade Commission in the United States launched its own do-not-call list in June 2003, more than 145 million Americans have registered. There is also a push in some states to bring in a do-not-mail list to put an end to junk mail.
In anticipation of changes in the telemarketing industry in Canada, Pitney Bowes this week announced a new direct-mail service for companies wanting to reach potential customers now stymied by the new Do Not Call registry.
The company cited research by the Direct Marketing Association showing that every $1 spent on direct mail advertising brings in $11 in sales -- more than twice the return generated by any other medium.
http://www.canada.com/ottawacitizen/news/story.html?id=c7a7987f-0533-4dfc-b34e-e70dd2508338
Massive response swamps new do-not-call registry
Cassandra Drudi, with files from Sarah Schmidt Canwest News Service Wednesday, October 01, 2008
Canada's new do-not-call list became a do-not-answer registry yesterday when its website and phone lines were swamped by consumers anxious to free themselves of insistent calls from telemarketers.
By 1:30 p.m., 156,615 people had managed to register online and 61,586 by telephone. But another one million or more first-day callers couldn't get through, said an official with the Canadian Radio-television and Tele-communications Commission, which oversees the registry.
Denis Carmel said the number of those who endured failed online registration attempts is not yet known.
"You could say we're victims of our own success," the CRTC spokesman said.
Mr. Carmel blamed the busy signals and error messages on the "sheer volume" of hits to www.lnnte-dncl.gc.ca and calls to the 1-866-580-3625 toll-free line.
Duncan Petrie, 65, unsuccessfully tried calling the registry yesterday morning.
"I tried it half-a-dozen times," he said, surprised that after all the "hoopla" surrounding the list, its first day of action would yield such delays.
Mr. Petrie was one of many Ottawa-area residents frustrated by the delay.
"We waited for this program for over a year," one Citizen reader wrote. "It's finally introduced, but doesn't work."
Internet law expert Michael Geist said the demand should have been no surprise.
"Canadians have been clamouring for a do-not-call list for years."
Telemarketers have 31 days to remove a number from their lists after it has been registered on the national list, the result of legislation passed in 2005.
But registered charities, political parties, newspapers and companies that already have an "existing business relationship" with a consumer are exempted from the do-not-call list, as are organizations calling and faxing to businesses.
Also exempt are companies making calls for polls or market research, which the CRTC does not consider telemarketing.
The number of exceptions prompted Mr. Geist, the Canada research chair of Internet and e-commerce law at the University of Ottawa, to dub it the "do-not-hesitate-to-call list."
It's a bit of a disappointment that the registry encountered stumbling blocks on its first day, but the bigger disappointment is the number of companies outside of the list's jurisdiction, he said.
To complement the do-not-call list, Mr. Geist created iOptOut.ca, a free online service where people can identify individual companies not covered by the do-not-call list from whom they'd like to stop receiving phone calls. The website then sends opt-out requests on their behalf and the companies are obliged to stop contacting them, the website says.
After receiving complaints about the service from the Canadian Marketing Association and the Canadian Bankers Association, the CRTC ruled in June that opt-out requests submitted through the website were valid. To date, more than 50,000 people have used the service.
Those who did get through to the national registry yesterday were able to successfully place their phone numbers on the list, Mr. Carmel said.
The CRTC is working with Bell Canada, which operates the registry for the government, to increase bandwidth and site capacity, he said.
Since the Federal Trade Commission in the United States launched its own do-not-call list in June 2003, more than 145 million Americans have registered. There is also a push in some states to bring in a do-not-mail list to put an end to junk mail.
In anticipation of changes in the telemarketing industry in Canada, Pitney Bowes this week announced a new direct-mail service for companies wanting to reach potential customers now stymied by the new Do Not Call registry.
The company cited research by the Direct Marketing Association showing that every $1 spent on direct mail advertising brings in $11 in sales -- more than twice the return generated by any other medium.
http://www.canada.com/ottawacitizen/news/story.html?id=c7a7987f-0533-4dfc-b34e-e70dd2508338