Ask HN: Does the National Do Not Call Registry actually work?
5 comments
Yes and no. It only works for honest companies that comply with the spirit of the law, not just the text (the text has some failures). I worked for years building direct marketing software and we complied with the law best we could, and we never called DNC numbers intentionally against the spirit of the law cause it didn't make money for us (not true of others). But I can't say we never called DNC numbers cause it happens when there are gaps in file loading, or someone at a business mis-keys a phone number so we would reclassify it as active etc.
Essentially (at the time, might have changed but I doubt it) a business is to register with the government, download the DNC list on a periodic basis and process their list against it. But there is a tiered set of rules. For example, if you are on the National DNC, but you had a recent transaction with a store, that store has a period of time which they can contact you regardless of the National DNC unless you opt out of their store specific list on the first call. After the defined period if you don't do any more business during that time they are to respect the National DNC again. Just an example.
Sadly, a lot of companies just don't comply because they are not based in the US and cannot be touched by the US government. I've heard speculation (never seen actual proof), some of these companies use/have used the National DNC as a marketing list essentially. The list is not hashed, not encrypted, just a plain text file with numbers (at least it used to be). So it is easy to harvest for nefarious purposes.
Essentially (at the time, might have changed but I doubt it) a business is to register with the government, download the DNC list on a periodic basis and process their list against it. But there is a tiered set of rules. For example, if you are on the National DNC, but you had a recent transaction with a store, that store has a period of time which they can contact you regardless of the National DNC unless you opt out of their store specific list on the first call. After the defined period if you don't do any more business during that time they are to respect the National DNC again. Just an example.
Sadly, a lot of companies just don't comply because they are not based in the US and cannot be touched by the US government. I've heard speculation (never seen actual proof), some of these companies use/have used the National DNC as a marketing list essentially. The list is not hashed, not encrypted, just a plain text file with numbers (at least it used to be). So it is easy to harvest for nefarious purposes.
It's useful for this much at least: If I'm in the registry, and someone calls me anyway, then I know that they're uninterested in following the law (modulo the exceptions you point out). That makes me uninterested in their offer, whatever it is. I don't do business with people whose first action is to lie to me, and I don't do business with people who break the law to contact me.
I have been entering my phone numbers into the register for at least twenty years. It seems that in the beginning it worked somewhat, but then it returned to the same level of spam calls. In the last five years, the number of unwanted calls has increased dramatically, coming mostly from over seas call centers and computerized robo-calls.
I will continue to update the registry periodically just because it may be doing a little bit of good, but I really don't know how much that is.
I will continue to update the registry periodically just because it may be doing a little bit of good, but I really don't know how much that is.
It does make it easier to sue them:
https://www.wtsp.com/article/news/investigations/10-investig...
https://www.wtsp.com/article/news/investigations/10-investig...
Bwahahahahahaha NO! Hell No!
spam calls have existed for ... 5 decades? More? Abusive. Exploits the old and mentally vulnerable. Annoying. Reduces faith in the communication medium.
The only time it mattered was when it was a real danger to the cellular companies in losing customers or costing them money. You know, about late 90s / aughts? Probably when the wonderfully naive author was first learning the internet and telecom?
Now that bandwidth for voice calls is an afterthought even in mobile, they don't care, so the FCC, which is a just an extension/puppet of the industry, doesn't care.
Think of how pervasively annoying robocalls and ad calls have been and for how long. I'm late forties and cannot remember a time that spam callers weren't being yelled at by my stepdad.
It's a highly centralized system, where the companies know exactly who to bill for exactly how long the call was. Sure there are national boundaries, but typically those are even more strictly tracked because of the big bucks you make in cross-national calls.
It's so annoying legislation has passed MULTIPLE times, and it has never done anything.
This is a perfect microcosm of the failed incentives and oligarchical control of the modern federal government. The FCC, the telcos, the corporations, they are the only ones with a say here.
Your grandmas getting fleeced for hundreds to thousands of dollars by robocalling salespeople? Who cares about them?
The sanctity of your nuclear family dinner? Doesn't matter.
But look at the US Mail system? Completely overridden with junk mail. Also strictly centralized, billed, and controlled by the US Government. It kills me to think of all the trees and habitats that have been killed to send stamps and bullshit mailings to every single American mailbox.
Email is a lot more decentralized and has no billing substrate, so its no surprise that went off the rails.
Why are there constantly churning messaging apps, all behind enclaves that won't share their messages? Because all the general messaging substrates are compromised by spam, so these messaging apps provide a protected opt-in enclave.
But they get to hold your messages and won't share and won't intercommunicate.
The modern firehose of information that is effectively driving "us" (in the collective societal sense) insane isn't strictly because of the quantity of information being so much greater, it's that the usual % of that information being spam and manipulative adds up to a much larger and emotionally isolating/despairing amount.
It used to be your day was 5 minutes of spam calls in the telephone, annoying and disruptive, but a small portion.
Now your brain probably has to do the equivalent of 1-2 hours of work a day parsing bullshit.
spam calls have existed for ... 5 decades? More? Abusive. Exploits the old and mentally vulnerable. Annoying. Reduces faith in the communication medium.
The only time it mattered was when it was a real danger to the cellular companies in losing customers or costing them money. You know, about late 90s / aughts? Probably when the wonderfully naive author was first learning the internet and telecom?
Now that bandwidth for voice calls is an afterthought even in mobile, they don't care, so the FCC, which is a just an extension/puppet of the industry, doesn't care.
Think of how pervasively annoying robocalls and ad calls have been and for how long. I'm late forties and cannot remember a time that spam callers weren't being yelled at by my stepdad.
It's a highly centralized system, where the companies know exactly who to bill for exactly how long the call was. Sure there are national boundaries, but typically those are even more strictly tracked because of the big bucks you make in cross-national calls.
It's so annoying legislation has passed MULTIPLE times, and it has never done anything.
This is a perfect microcosm of the failed incentives and oligarchical control of the modern federal government. The FCC, the telcos, the corporations, they are the only ones with a say here.
Your grandmas getting fleeced for hundreds to thousands of dollars by robocalling salespeople? Who cares about them?
The sanctity of your nuclear family dinner? Doesn't matter.
But look at the US Mail system? Completely overridden with junk mail. Also strictly centralized, billed, and controlled by the US Government. It kills me to think of all the trees and habitats that have been killed to send stamps and bullshit mailings to every single American mailbox.
Email is a lot more decentralized and has no billing substrate, so its no surprise that went off the rails.
Why are there constantly churning messaging apps, all behind enclaves that won't share their messages? Because all the general messaging substrates are compromised by spam, so these messaging apps provide a protected opt-in enclave.
But they get to hold your messages and won't share and won't intercommunicate.
The modern firehose of information that is effectively driving "us" (in the collective societal sense) insane isn't strictly because of the quantity of information being so much greater, it's that the usual % of that information being spam and manipulative adds up to a much larger and emotionally isolating/despairing amount.
It used to be your day was 5 minutes of spam calls in the telephone, annoying and disruptive, but a small portion.
Now your brain probably has to do the equivalent of 1-2 hours of work a day parsing bullshit.
I've registered my phone number in their list over a year ago but have not seen a difference in the volume of telemarketing calls I have been receiving. Reporting the unwanted phone numbers on their website does not seem to be effective either.