As teleservices and Internet applications converge, online marketers should keep a close eye on telemarketing legislation.
“There’s not much regulation on the Web yet, but there will be because issues related to phone calls also apply to the Internet,” notes Tyler Prochnow, general counsel for the American Teleservices Association, North Hollywood, CA.
At many companies, the same customer service reps and computer systems that handle phone orders also handle online business. Reps are answering inbound calls and e-mail, as well as placing outbound calls when customers click “call-me” buttons on Web sites.
But for now, at least, regulators are continuing to focus on the telephone and leaving the Web alone. Prochnow anticipates as many as 20 or 25 states will likely enact laws similar to those in Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Arkansas and Tennessee, which recently made it mandatory that companies doing outbound telemarketing use some form of opt-out lists or do-not-call lists.
Some states are maintaining their own opt-out lists which companies must use. In other instances states require companies to match records against the do-not-call list maintained by a telephone company.
So far, opt-out laws have little impact on marketers because relatively few consumers actually opt out. Prochnow says that despite substantial publicity generated by Georgia’s law, only 187,000 of the state’s 7 million residents requested to be placed on the state’s list.
Prochnow anticipates enforcement of opt-out laws will be short-term for several reasons. Such laws are open to various interpretations when a person doesn’t precisely say they want their name removed from a list or a business relationship already exists, he says. Also a consumer might be taken off one list and later added to another used by the same company.
Companies use different business models to interpret records of interactions with consumers, he notes. Someone who tells a phone rep they’re “not interested” or who hangs up doesn’t necessarily need to be removed from a list. “We don’t advise anyone not to call again” in that instance, Prochnow says.
States have no legal right to restrict marketing with do-not-call lists, he says. “I am of the opinion that these state-run lists are unconstitutional.”
The opt-out issue could come to a boil at the federal level this year. H.R. 3180, the Telemarketing Victims Protection Act, has been referred to the House Commerce Committee. At press time, no hearings were scheduled before Congress recessed through Jan. 24. H.R. 3180 would require phone reps to disclose information about do-not-call lists maintained by the Direct Marketing Association and various states. It would also prohibit outbound calls to residences between the hours of 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. Present regulations allow calling from 8 a.m. to 9 p.m.
If it becomes law, the Telemarketing Victims Protection Act would also authorize the Federal Trade Commission to conduct a one-year study of companies that fail to comply with do-not-call requests and recommend new federal enforcement actions against repeat offenders.
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