The Federal Trade Commission was not able to confirm at deadline accusations that spam filters may be hindering online registrations for its do-not-call list.
Early Friday, a suburban Washington, DC online security firm, NetFrameworks, said its researchers discovered that some computer spam blocking systems were misinterpreting online confirmations of registrations to the FTC's do-not-call list as spam, or unwanted online solicitations.
"This is an irony," said Eric Greenberg, chief technical officer of NetFrameworks. "Current unsolicited communications detection and assurance mechanisms are based on a set of arbitrarily defined rules. The people that control the rules, by definition, often know very little about what truly constitutes spam or unwanted solicitations."
Meanwhile, the FTC's much awaited do-not-call list drew at least 735,000 registrants Friday afternoon after accepting them for about 14 hours but already the lists began drawing some familiar criticism.
"I'm in favor of the list, but I don't know that the FTC and FCC will be able to handle all the complaints that are going to come from this, now that consumers have a place to complain to," said Bob Bulmash, president of Private Citizen Inc., a Naperville, IL privacy advocacy organization.
At deadline, Bulmash was unsure if the do-not-call list—which now combines the separate lists developed by the Federal Trade Commission and the Federal Communications Commission--will retain a consumer's right to sue individual telemarketers if they feel they are being contacted too often.
Last Thursday, the Federal Communications Commission adopted changes to the Telephone Consumer Protection Act of 1991 that expanded the scope of Federal Trade Commission's already-announced do-not-call list and created one single nationwide do-not-call list that would be administered by the FTC (Direct Newsline, June 26).
Late last year, the FTC unveiled plans for the national do-not-call list and a series of strict regulations and $11,000-a-day fines for noncompliance.
