Awhile back I told you about ioptout.ca - a website started by Dr. Michael Geist to close a loophole in Canada's new "Do Not Call" list. I Opt Out gives you the opportunity to tell a bunch of companies at once that you don't want them to call you any more. Predictably the Canadian Marketing Association (CMA) and the Canadian Bankers Association (CBA) bitched to the CRTC about the site, arguing that their competitors could fraudulently use it to keep them away from customers. Fortunately the CRTC wasn't buying it:
"..any such issues that arise could be dealt with by Canada's competition laws, the Criminal Code and the Privacy Commissioner.Personally I'm pleased with the CRTC on this one. Telemarketing, to me, says nothing except that the company obviously doesn't respect you but would like your money anyway. The very nature of telemarketing says that they do not respect your privacy. The way telemarketing is carried out - a quick sales pitch with few details and barely a chance to say no - says that they don't respect your intelligence. Finally the recent trend toward using recorded messages rather than actual people to make the pitch says that the company doesn't believe that your time is worth enough that they can have a real person talk to you. Fortunately all of this comes to an end on September 30, when you can sign up for the do not call list. Dr. Geist's ioptout.ca is merely a convenient way to close a loophole and tell companies that the government left out of its 'do not call' legislation that they can back off too - without your having to contact them all individually.
He [CRTC chairman Konrad von Finckenstein] also suggested the CMA and CBA work with Geist to smooth out any technical or operational problems."
No comments:
Post a Comment