Proposed changes in the Federal Trade Commission’s telemarketing regulations, announced yesterday, will now require for-profit companies that do telemarketing for charities to keep their own lists of people who don’t want to be contacted for donations.
Those disclosure regulations are part of the USA PATRIOT Act, passed after the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001.
But charities themselves will remain exempt, according to Senny Boone, executive director of the Direct Marketing Association’s Nonprofit Federation.
“I’m pleased that nonprofits were exempted from this,” said Kelly Browning, executive director of the Washington, DC-based American Institute For Cancer Research, which regularly runs neighborhood-based telemarketing campaigns.
Charities will also be required to promptly identify themselves and the purpose of their calls.
The regulations should take effect early next year, noted Boone.
The FTC’s proposed changes, including a national do-not-call list, and funding for the regulations, must be authorized by Congress after it reconvenes in January.
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