Direct Marketing

In the past few years, that has been an increasing number of laws proposed to "protect our privacy". Some are so horrible that even the most rabid privacy advocates are asking left leaning politicians not to pass them. Others like, the federal Do Not Call Implementation Act aren't horrible. In fact, the Do Not Call law is quite good.

Here is a law that wasn't even considered until industry was given a (really) fair chance to address a problem and failed. It's a law that has real teeth to prosecute violators. And it steps in to use government power in a situtation where individual consumers didn't have a whole lot themselves (marketing companies weren't too distressed about ruining a relationship with a customer who wouldn't give them business anyway).

The FTC has just announced a prosecution of a company thought to have made hundreds of thousands of calls illegally. Coming on the heels of a settlement with AT&T, the FTC appears to be getting into full swing on this front. Prosecution along with the threat of it seems to be having an effect. Studies suggest that unwanted telemarketing calls are dropping (see my earlier post).

Now, can we adopt the same level-headed approach to combatting other information abuses?

11% of cell phone users aren’t at all worried about privacy invasions from the proposed wireless directory. 52% say it’s okay with them as long as somebody promises some kind of privacy protection. So says a survey recently released by the Pierz Group.

The remaining 37% are presumably switching to Verizon or Qwest. Ain't capitalism great?