I am surprised there there has not been more analysis of the way the National Do Not Call list formed over the summer. How is it possible that 50 million Americans found a link on a web site and a 800 number and visited these to register the number? There was not a drive to "register" campaign run by some advocacy group. There was not a big grassroots campaign. The government did not send out information to everyone in America. In fact, it is more amazing when you look at the timeline of events and the fact that there was confusion about the value of being on the list and privacy concerns about adding a name to any list. 10 million people signed up for the registry in the first 4 days.
There a few great lessons that need to be teased out of this experience. The lessons are social, technological and political in nature.
First, A huge chunk of America hates unwanted phone calls. I would suggest that a healthy subset of the 50 million people really would like to stop all unwanted calls from reaching them. If they had the option they would opt out of calls from all phone banks, telemarketing companies and robo-dialers. (They really don't want there to be loopholes for business with existing relationships, organizations, political parties or charities). A big set of people want privacy and quiet more than they want information via phone calls from anyone.
Second, in a society as connected as America (166 million residential phone numbers, 147 million U.S. cell phone numbers, 66% of the Adult population makes it online from 137 million residential use of computers at home. finding information is not the challenge it once was. A huge slice of the population is connected to a dense communication grid. They can find information and act on it very quickly.
Finally, an unorganized group of people has power. The Do Not Call list was challenged by a 50 billion dollar telemarketing industry. The industry took the law to court and lobbied actively against it. They were ignored because no politician want to give 50 million people a reason to organize. The Congress and the White House acted twice to make sure the Do Not Call list was not an issue after the project showed so much support.
It is time to close the rest of the loopholes. Stop all unwanted calls from any robot, sales, survey, charity and political party! No Phone Spam. Sign the Petition. (Your information will never be shared or sold.)
Recent Comments