| Comment Number: | OL-101810 |
| Received: | 11/27/2004 7:38:58 PM |
| Organization: | Carleton College |
| Commenter: | Richard L. Goerwitz III |
| State: | MN |
| Subject: | Trade Regulation Rule on Telemarketing Sales |
| Title: | Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, Request for Comment |
| CFR Citation: | 16 CFR Part 310 |
| No Attachments |
Comments:
I would like to offer reasons not to amend the TSR's call abandonment safe harbor provision the way the Direct Marketing Association would like to. If we allow telemarketing calls that deliver a prerecorded message to consumers with whom the seller on whose behalf the calls are made, I'll tell you exactly what will happen. First off we'll run into trouble determining who the seller is. Businesses aren't cut-and-dried entities, and we'll end up needing a bunch of extra verbiage to handle that problem. Secondly, we'll also run into trouble determining what a "business relationship" is, and this is potentially even worse. Suppose I buy a computer. It has parts from twenty or thirty different manufacturers in it. Do I have a relationship with all of them? With the wholesaler? Retailer? It's a slippery slope. In fact, most of us absolutely *detest* intrusive marketing of the sort that the Direct Marketing Association does, and if they were allowed to operate unimpeded, we'd find huge productivity losses due to their tactics. Right now they are relatively constrained by law (though I still receive automated solicitations, and I gather so do most others). Let's keep it that way, not only for the sake of the happiness and productivity of the American people, but also just because it will keep things simpler and easier to enforce. Richard L. Goerwitz III