Announced Action for April 18, 2005

Publication of Federal Register notice: The Commission has approved the publication of a notice of proposed rulemaking in the Federal Register that would amend the Telemarketing Sales Rule to revise the fees charged for industry access to the National Do Not Call Registry. As detailed in the notice, the FTC is accepting comments on the proposed fee changes. Under the proposed new fee structure, the annual fee for each area code of data accessed would become $56, and the maximum amount charged to entities accessing 280 area codes or more would become $15,400. The proposed rulemaking would continue to allow telemarketers to obtain the first five area codes of data for free, and would still allow those entities exempt from the Registry’s requirements to obtain access at no charge. The Commission is, however, requesting comments on whether telemarketers should still be permitted to access a certain number of area codes for free and address the potential impact of a change to this provision.

Telemarketers are required to renew their subscriptions to the Do Not Call Registry once a year, and must “scrub” their call lists once every 31 days. The Do Not Call Web site for telemarketers (telemarketing.donotcall.gov) will inform them when their subscription account numbers (SANs) expire and give them renewal instructions. To date, consumers have registered approximately 88 million telephone numbers on the Registry, which accepts home land line and personal cell phone numbers at www.donotcall.gov or 1-888-382-1222.

The FTC is accepting public comments on the proposed rulemaking until June 1, 2005. Pending public comment, the new fee schedule will go into effect on September 1, 2005. Written comments should refer to “TSR Fee Rule, Project No. P034305” on both the text and the envelope and should be mailed to: Federal Trade Commission/Office of the Secretary, Room H-159 (Annex K), 600 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W., Washington, DC, 20580. Comments containing confidential information must be mailed in paper form. The FTC requests that any paper comments be sent by courier or overnight service. Commentors may also submit comments online at https://securecommentworks.com/ftc-dncfees2005. The Commission vote approving publication of the Federal Register notice was 5-0. (FTC File No. P034305; see related press release issued on July 30, 2004.)

Copies of the documents mentioned in this release are available from the FTC’s Web site at http://www.ftc.gov and also from the FTC’s Consumer Response Center, Room 130, 600 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W., Washington, DC 20580. Call toll-free: 1-877-FTC-HELP.