Bills prohibiting businesses from selling the transactional histories of their customers for marketing purposes, and telemarketers from selling or trading their do-not-call lists to other telemarketers also for marketing purposes, were introduced this week in the House and Senate.
While Rep. Gerald Kleczka (D-WI) introduced the Personal Information Privacy Act (HR-1478), amending both the Fair Credit Reporting and Federal Trade Commission Acts in the House, Senator Bill Frist (R-TN) introduced the Telemarketer Identification Act (S-722) in the Senate to amend the Communications Act of 1934.
Kleczka’s bill, besides prohibiting businesses, catalogers, direct marketers and others from selling customer transactional histories, would also prohibit them from demanding that a customer disclose his or her Social Security Number as a condition of doing business.
It would also prohibit credit reporting bureaus from disclosing a person’s Social Security Number to any individual or business without their express permission.
Any business that sells or trades a customer’s transactional history or makes disclosure of a Social Security Number as a condition of doing business faces a civil penalty of up to $10,000 per incident.
Credit reporting agencies would be subject to civil penalties ranging from $25,000 to $500,000 per incident.
Frist’s bill prohibiting telemarketers from selling or trading their do-not-call lists with others for marketing purposes would also make it illegal for telemarketers to “interfere with or circumvent the ability of a caller identification service to access or provide the recipient of the call with information” about it.
A telemarketer, under that provision, must show their individual or business name and telephone number on the caller identification equipment of a call recipient in addition a toll-free number that a can be called by the recipient asking to be placed on the marketer’s do-not-call list.
The bill gives the Federal Communications Commission 18 months to develop implementing rules and regulations. But it would allow the FCC to grant waivers of up to two years to telemarketers who could not immediately meet them because of equipment or other technical problems or if compliance costs would “impose an unduly onerous financial burden” on the telemarketer.
At the same time the measure would give consumers and state authorities the right to sue violators for damages of up to $1,500 per incident.
Network
