News

Canadian Do-Not-Call List Launches Tomorrow

There is considerable media attention today on tomorrow's launch of the National Do-Not-Call List.  Starting tomorrow, Canadians will be able to register up to three phone numbers on the DNCL.  Organizations will have 31 days to abide by the request.  Failure to do so can result in penalties of up to $15,000.  Bell Canada is running the list, while the CRTC will enforce it.

As regular readers know, I have dubbed the list the do-not-hesitate-to-call list given the large number of exceptions.  Indeed, some estimates indicate that 85 percent of telemarketing calls will be exempt under the DNCL.  These include exemptions for political parties, charities, survey companies, newspapers, and business with a prior business relationship (which is very broadly defined).  Moreover, there are jurisdictional problems with the DNCL since it only applies to (or can only be enforced against) Canadian telemarketing practices.

Notwithstanding the exceptions, the law includes a crucially important requirement on exempt organizations.  With the exception of survey companies, all other exempt organizations must maintain their own internal DNCL.  That means that Canadians can specifically opt-out of exempt organization telemarketing calls and the organization will be required to abide by the request (failure to do so brings the same potential penalties).  If you don't want further calls, register on the National DNCL and take the opportunity to ask that your number be placed on the internal DNCL for exempt organizations.  Alternatively, iOptOut.ca, which I launched earlier this year and which the CRTC has ruled is enforceable, makes it easy to opt-out of many exempt organizations with a few clicks.  In the coming days, iOptOut, which has been used by more than 50,000 people, will be expanding the database of included organizations and will be launching a French language version.

14 Comments

  1. Increasing Calls
    I’m concerned that by signing up, I will be providing my number to a whole host of organizations, including exempt ones. If I didn’t receive calls from them previously because they didn’t have my number, what’s to stop them from using the list to add numbers to their call lists?

  2. free info
    We find ourselves under the trap of big corporations who think they can do whatever they like, therefore let\’s remedy this with basic common sense.

    Here is how I solved it:
    They call and I ask for their full name [usually they refuse due to their privacy … hmmm and what about ours?]
    What is their full company name, address, CEO and his full personal contact info? This is where they usually give up. Unless they give proof of who they are [fully] you don\’t need to talk to them. They are showing dishonor in front of any court you choose to take them to.
    Tell them this call is being recorded due to security reasons.
    If they persist tell them they are being charged $1,000 per hour for wasting your time. Really!
    It is your choice to make your own prices.
    Ask them for their real number they are calling from and to prove it.
    Now persist on all their info till they give up. You are the master of your phone and your life, not them!
    If they ask why you want this info just tell them it\’s for a Notice of Intent to be served to their CEO and or business.
    You may also want to say it’s for presentation to your MP, peace officer and or courts.
    Never give out your person info to anyone over the phone unless you know them personally. As far as Spammers are concerned my name is aha, yup, sure, ok or \”administrator of this account\”.

    A few of these calls and they will run for cover. I haven’t received a Spam call in 3 months.
    I also deal with most situations like this, including getting pulled over by police, if I haven’t caused anyone injury or wrong. They are supposed to be peace officers not cops.

    I suggest everyone visit [ link ] and learn. Study it in detail. Stand up to them corporate rip-offs or you will loose all your rights!

    free man
    Live in peace and be happy 😉

  3. Ya, this list is a joke. I don’t want ANYONE calling me from anywhere selling me anything!

  4. Okay, it’s the 30th. I went to the website. It asked for my phone number. I entered it. And this is what it said.

    HTTP Error 404 – File or directory not found.

  5. Devin Baines says:

    Site busted
    The site is getting hammered – cannot register my number.

  6. Site is here
    Site is here: [ link ]

    Why the link in the post is some IP address?

  7. thanks!
    Thanks for your vigilance on this issue. I was quite excited to see the government doing something about this problem, but I am glad there is someone out there pointing out some of the potential pitfalls and compromises made.

    The government/Bell site (wasn’t being up and running on midnight sept. 30th part of the compliance?) now seems to be working and I’ve registered. If after, a month, I’m getting specific calls still, I’ll hop over to ioptout. Thanks again!

  8. The Do Not Call List is a waste of time
    This is an appalling piece of legislation and does virtually nothing to protect Canadians. To add insult to injury, we had to wait three years for this and now on the day of launch, the online registration for the list doesn\’t work. A total waste of time and money. It is time that our elected representatives put voters first, instead of third behind themselves and institutional political donors. Wake up Canadians! We can do better than this – use your vote!

    http://euphemus.ca

  9. Why DNCL might not work, why many things
    Let’s be up front, Canadians have been LIED to by every Government since start of NAFTA.

    Canadians have been subdued like sheep not to stand up for our rights. YES, that’s probably you!
    Kudos to few that have stood up.

    Bell was bought mostly by USA interests and in bad taste. Have a good read: [ link ]

    With USA interests squarely dug inside Canada they can do whatever they want. Unless we stand up to them: We Must Stand Up To Corporations, Bad Government and TAKE BACK OUT COUNTRY!

    Bell managing this Do Not Call List is the biggest travesty to Canadians. This gives full rights to USA interests to steal Canadian persons information and spread it to every advertising company on the planet [for a profit] without oversight. All this against any and all of our privacy laws if database is moved outside Canada. Good bye more Canadian jobs too.

    How far has it gone?
    Watch “WHO k i l l e d CANADA?” – A 2008 Election Primer – by Mel Hurtig
    [ link ]

    A MUST watch video for all Canadians! … especially ones with kids and family.

  10. Lover
    The Do not call list is a cure for which there is no known disease. Want peace and quiet? Have your number unlisted.

    There are of course a couple of problems with this. For one thing, thanks to our govt, the telcos run a perfectly legal protection racket. If you don\’t give them a $5 a month extortion fee your number will be published all over the internet and in the telephone directory and you will be harassed non-stop until you pay up. Of course, the govt gets a cut of that extortion fee in the form of taxes.

    And many people want privacy but do not want to be completely anonymous. What if an old friend is passing through town and wants to get in touch? Here\’s something else many people don\’t know. Bell used to offer a service where your phone number didn\’t appear in the directory (to avoid most scammers & telemarketers) but they made your number available through directory assistance to those who knew your name and address. They killed that service many years ago.

    Millions of Canadians get calls from crooks every year and I am not just talking about politicians here. There are all kinds of scams taking advantage of our seniors and other fellow citizens and THEY ALL START WITH YOUR NAME IN THE PHONE BOOK. The RCMP issues reports about this every few months. No matter how you look at it, OUR TELCOS ARE ACCOMPLICES.

    Strangely, the need to charge $5 for something they do NOT do for us, like NOT listing our land line phone number, mysteriously disappears with mobile communications. As a matter of fact some telcos will charge you $3 a month to have your cell phone listed!

    There are ways around this privacy issue but few people know them. One of the better ways to control your privacy is to get a device that adds an extension code for calls to ring-through. Otherwise callers have to leave a message on the recording machine. Reviews on these little known devices can be seen in Consumer Reports and on Amazon.com. Here\’s one product telcos don\’t want you to know about:

    [ link ]

    It\’s not that expensive and it has advantages over voice mail. For one thing, you can screen your calls. And there are no monthly fees, etc.

  11. No Option 3?
    For the last few weeks, I’ve been getting calls about lowering my credit card interest rate to some insane low percentage amount. The pre-recorded message tells me to press 1 to speak to someone or press 3 to be taken off the list. So I press 3. The calls DON’T stop. In fact, they increase to about once a day, every day. I received another call this morning and instead, I pressed 1 to talk to someone. I was immediately transferred to a nice fellow named Dave. As I was very politely explaining to Dave how how their option 3 doesn’t seem to be functioning correctly and I would very much like to be taken off their call list…

    He hung up on me.

    I promptly went and signed up on the National DNC list, simply because I do not seem to have an option 3…and perhaps neither do you.

  12. the glass is half empty
    I was thinking that the telemarketing business would be happy about the new dncl. With this list they now know people who will not be interested in their offers so they can now spend their time with people that don’t mind getting these calls. I know people don’t think that people actually respond to these calls but that is simply not true. I know people making over $3000 a WEEK! telemarketing and easily doubling that during the holiday season. They call and present an offer and thats it. If the person is not interested then thats the end of the conversation. They dont go and keep calling and harassing them. I am not saying they all do this but most people in telemarketing who are trying to make a living are given a list and they just go through it. The guys I know are not allowed to prey on older people and once the person says no they have to hang up. With these people having to abide by these kinds of rules and still make that kind of coin shows that it is a very lucrative business that will not go down.
    Any comments ( by the way I hate getting those calls too.My point is that whatever we do these telemarketing companies that are easily bringing in 6 figures are not going to stop). I also have a question that I would like to have answered if possible. Is it true that a Canadian company for example that does duct cleaning in Toronto, can outsource their telemarketing to say India and then not get in any trouble or get any fines?
    If this is true then in my opinion the dncl is useless.
    please respond
    take care

  13. The DNCL is a number-collecting project and little else. Michael has already pointed to its virtually-total ineffectiveness (up to 85% exempt?); meanwhile by signing up you’re actually giving them all your number. D-uh! I’ve never yet received a spam call on my cell; if and when I do, the DNCL isn’t going to help, that’s obvious. People, stop being sheep – the DNCL is just an attempt to shear you.

    And let’s stop dignifying spam calls by giving them a name more acceptable than the emails we hate. They’re WORSE – an email can be ignored and deleted far more easily than a spam-caller who exploits the fact that most people are too polite to hang up on them, even when they’re blatantly and intentionally calling them during dinner. I don’t care if they have rules about how to conduct their calls, and don’t give me a line about trying to make a living. Puh-lease! Their line of work is parasitic, and they are a—oles for doing it. STOP TOLERATING IT!

  14. Avoid Do-not-call list
    I would like to advise people against registering for the national do not call list. I did so almost as soon as it came into effect back in early October. Since then I have experienced an marked increase in the number of unsolicited calls I receive daily. So now I must embark on the tedious task of trying to discourage each one of these infuriating callers from invading my privacy in the future. I hav emy theories about what happened to the information when I registered for the list, but I can prove none of them of course. So please don’t make the same mistake I did, you may regret it.