I am curious what are the conservative, and what are the libertarian points of view regarding robocalls and regarding live person telemarketing calls.

First off, this isn't going to stop the bulk of the robocalls that people get - which are the warranty and interest rate phishing calls. Although the recent high-profile arrests of some of the fraudsters seems to have brought them to an abrupt halt, so there's that.

Second, in response to Jerry, it's pretty much the same view as regards fax-spam - unsolicited calls represent an unlawful theft of resources.

The bulk of the robocalls - flight information, prescription ready, etc - represent calls you've told someone you want. Whether a robot or not, they're not a horrible thing.

Charity and political robocalls hack me off and I don't want them, but politicians are never going to make themselves get permission before they impose upon you.

This is clearly another Lepetomane law.

unsolicited calls represent an unlawful theft of resources.

This is also what I say in my chapter on telemarketing. You have no right to hijack my time and a phone line I pay for to make your marketing costs cheaper. Crid said this well a few months back -- something about causing a device he owns to make a shrill noise in his living room.

But, as I've written previously:

On A First Amendment Note: I'm all for freedom of speech...such as the freedom to hire somebody to stand on public property to ask us to give them our phone numbers so people in a boiler room can irritate the crap out of us. The freedom I'm not for is the freedom to hijack a telephone line I pay for to interrupt me at dinner time (or any other time) to try to sell me something. This freedom is, however, available for a price, per a suggestion from Tyler Cowen.

http://www.advicegoddess.com/archives/2003/09/11/telemarketers_t.html

AMY ALKON'S PRICE LIST FOR TELEMARKETERS:
Interrupting me during my nap: $3,012.50 (not including tax).
During dinner: $3,761.23.
During sex: $13,456.50.
Other prices available upon request

By the way, I'm LOVING Tyler Cowen's new book, Create Your Own Economy: The Path to Prosperity in a Disordered World. Going to do a separate blog item about it below.

Lately I've gotten (non-robo I admit) calls from people doing surveys whose spiel says that the survey will "only take a minute." I say, "Less than that actually." -click-

The conservative and libertarian positions are identical: Freedom of speech is the right to say what you think, either in your own private space or publically. I can write in my diary or publish a blog. However, I have no right to write in your diary.

The liberal position is, cynically, that I can write in your diary as long as it's all in a good cause.

Any sort of unsolicited communication that is sent to another person's private address is an intrusion into private space. It doesn't matter whether it is a call, a fax, an SMS, an email or a Hogwarts owl coming down your chimney. All unsolicited communications to any sort of private address should be prohibited.

The legal problem is: there is no clear "right to privacy" in this sense. The concept of Intrusion of solitude refers more to eavesdropping or spying on someone.

OF COURSE it doesn't cover political messages! Since I signed up for Do Not Call, that's above and beyond the bulk of the solicitations I get. I couldn't wait for the Presidential election to be over, because at that point, John McCain was calling me at 8 am every morning!

I have no problem telling the charities (who usually have live people, at least) no thank you. But I HATE being woken up on my day off to hear a recorded message booming in my ear. That really, really made me angry, but since their "exempt", I get to suffer. And now we're having a special election in my city, so the calls have started AGAIN.

Political robo-calling is evil, but I can't see a way to stop it other than unhooking my landline.

Doesn't that exempt list cover pretty much everybody who makes robocalls and telemarketing calls to begin with?

Political robo-calling is evil, but I can't see a way to stop it other than unhooking my landline.

Tools such as those offered by Google Voice might help. It lets you do things like filter incoming calls based on source phone number.

Making robocalls at offensive times (and at offensive volumes) that claim to endorse your opponent might be an effective dirty trick, especially if they're verbatim copies of your opponent's legit robocalls. I wonder how much that happens. "HI! I'M HONEST HARRY! I LIKE FLOWERS AND SUNSHINE! VOTE FOR ME!" "Why does Honest Harry call me at 3 am? I'm voting for Crooked Cris!"

The calls have gotten so bad that my husband won't even get up to answer the land line anymore. We joined the Do Not Call list, but that has only helped 10%. All of this, and we have an unlisted phone number.

IMO, unlisted numbers should be on the Do Not Call list by default. How exactly are phone companies allowed to take my money to keep them from disclosing my directory information and then sell my information to telemarketers?

-Julie

Well, this post reminded me to put our new home number on the DNC list... although it won't help much. Our phone rings constantly, and we never answer it (the called pops up on the TV), because we haven't given our home number to a single person we know.

Anyway, I really, really hate robocalls. If I were a politician, I wouldn't use them in my campaign, because they piss people off. Sometimes, I WILL do a survey, if I'm bored and just messing around on the computer. I agree that unsolicited phone calls/faxes/text messages are essentially theft of resources.

Julie -

They just dial numbers sequentially. They don't know or care who's on the other end.

The Do Not Call list is a joke. All they did was move the call centers outside the US where our laws don't apply.

If I were a politician, I wouldn't use them in my campaign, because they piss people off.

I talked to Walter and Judy Moore (Walter ran against our loser of a mayor, Tony Teeth/The Junketer/Villaraigosa, in the last election) and they decided not to use robocalls for this reason.

I've told organizations I've given money to that if they EVER call me again, I will give money to their opposition. That stopped those calls fast!

And then, you'll see my other solutions in the book -- and I hope you'll follow my lead!

I tried the "do not call" route. I was soon back up to as many calls as ever. I finally called the phone company and asked them why I was paying them 40 dollars a month to allow strangers to annoy me. They did't have a good explaination other than that they would be willing for six months to charge me only 20 dollars a month for people to annoy me. I said that even free would be close to too much. I turned off the land line in April. My cell pretty much covers everything now. I get an occasional wrong number but no robo calls yet. Isabel.

I'm now getting constant RoboCalls from supposedly the U.S. Department of Education.

Ummmm, I don't go to school and live in Canada. Can one of you please put a stop to this annoyance?!?

I wish you luck in your quest Robert. Tis clear evidence of economic hard times when the "DOE" is hitting up foreign citizens for cash... :)

Its baffled me for a while now why politicians do it. I had words with a gal running for state rep here a few years ago. She (Dem) was in a tough battle with her Repub. opponent. It got so bad neither of them were worth voting for. 30+ seconds every day or so between them in a mud slinging match.

Worse was that it took me 10 minutes searching through her mess of an online website to find a working email address. To her credit she responded with "I'm sorry, its the best way to get our message out!". She's toned it down in the last two elections but she's also a major fanatic for sending out mailers, many I'm sure paid by taxpayer dollars.

Isn't the easy solution to this problem just turning your phone off while you are eating?

I want my friends, my boyfriend, and my family to be able to reach me whenever they call. These scumwads are stealing my time and use of my phone line. It's up to them to reach me in a way that isn't theft.

Hear, hear! As usual Jay R is a tool.

I signed up for the Do Not Call list here in Canada and it actually seemed to cut down on the number of calls. There was one particular number that was listed as a "newspaper call centre" that called incessantly before and now seems to have given up (I hope). Maybe the list worked for me? Crossing my fingers, anyway.

Crusader,

Still working on your vocabulary? Good. Maybe some day you will be able to say something which does not constitute a mindless personal attack. It does look like you have a long way to go, however.

> Can one of you please put a stop
> to this annoyance?!?

Aw c'mon, you ought to be able to put up with a few momentary distractions:

| [T]his once proud Dominion now has
| to import sperm. According to CTV,
| 80 per cent of Canadian women who
| conceive through donor sperm are
| getting it from the United States,
| mainly from men in Georgia and
| northern Florida. Canada’s future
| is now in American hands.

If Congress wants to do something, why don't they at least mandate that half of the money collected for charity go to charity? The local PBA solicits by phone, and it's been reported that over 90% of the money is kept by the telemarketer. I will not give a dime, even for that worthy cause, until it stops. It's fraud, prepertrated by the police department.

My mom, "also up here in Canada", signed up for the Do Not Call list and it has gotten noticeably worse!

My understanding is that these annoying scumbags are absolutely forbidden from calling mobile phones. I'm STRONGLY considering dumping my land line altogether because 90% of all calls I get at home are these annoying ones.

During a work slowdown a few weeks ago, I was at the phone during the daytime and got some marketing calls, maybe three a day. I answered by saying horrible, horrible things to the people... Mocking their sexuality, their financial incompetence, their friendlessness, their ethnic heritage etc. And after a few days, the calls stopped.

Isn't that interesting? We've always assumed that these people are finding our numbers randomly, or on some unmanaged list of some kind. But whaddya know!: It turns out that if these people –who have no business calling you and deserve no expectation of courtesy– will stop bothering you, once they learn that they're wasting their time... Or worse, learn that a call to your number actively diminishes the enthusiasm and manageability of their employees.

Also, I have a post-it on the bezel of this computer with the name and phone numbers of the Western District director of the Federal Trade Commission. When people phone to sell carpet cleaning, I tell them I have 4800 sq ft of offices in the Wilshire Federal Building that need to be shampoo'd.

Yes, next Thursday morning would be fine. Ten o'clock? Perfect, see you then. When you arrive, ask for "Jeff".

Crid, my hat is off to you. You ARE an evil genius! "Doctor Evil" is taken, but can I call you "Master Evil"?