[discostu]

No it's the paying for the service. You can tell because there are specific laws against unsolicited phone calls on cell phones and even laws to allow people to opt out of unsolicited calls on landlines. There are no such laws about commercials or junkmail. Therefore it's the SERVICE.

You just said it's not A it's A. Telemarketers are companies that COLD call people who have shown no previous interest in a product to try to get them to buy it. They are using the TELEphone as a MARKETing tool. I have no problem with anybody doing followup contact by phone, that's not telemarketing, that's telephone sales. The difference is whether you're using the phone for initial contact or continued contact, is it advertising or actually continuing a client relationship. The DNC has a specific exemption for followup contact, and it should there's nothing wrong with continuing a client relationship by phone, there is something extremely wrong with calling people to advertise a product, especially if they've already indicated with caller ID and telezapper that they're not interested.

That question is false at it's face. This isn't an anti-business law. This is a pro-individual right law. As I've said REPEATEDLY, and you deliberately have ignored REPEATEDLY: if the telemarketing companies would just have respected people's right to not get harrassed this never would have happened. But they didn't. I don't even have a problem with telemarketing companies IF they give me (and everybody else) an easy way to not be called by them. But they've chosen to define their relationship with people as adversarial, stupid on their part.

[Tired of Taxes]

Just because "paying for a service" was used as a basis for a cell phone law doesn't mean that I have to agree that the basis for that law was a good one.

There is a distinction between "paying for a service" (phone line, cable service, internet service) and private property (your house, your land, your telephone, your TV, your computer). That cell phone service is not our private property. We're simply leasing open lines from companies.

I hate sales calls, too. But, the phone companies, not the feds, should handle it. (I like the idea of a "No Solicitors" message transmitted to telemarketers by the phone company, and harrassment charges against a telemarketer who ignores a person's request not to call. Certain keys could be dialed to report telemarketers for harrassment and the calls traced. No need to ask for the telemarketing manager, just report them via the phone company for harrassment).

C'mon, Discostu, we have too many federal laws as it is. Big Brother is already micromanaging our lives, and this is just another step in that direction.

Telemarketers are companies that COLD call people who have shown no previous interest in a product to try to get them to buy it. They are using the TELEphone as a MARKETing tool. I have no problem with anybody doing followup contact by phone, that's not telemarketing, that's telephone sales.

"Telephone sales" also involves cold-calling. Telephone salespeople who sit around waiting for people to call them aren't salespeople at all - they're "order-takers".

As I've said REPEATEDLY, and you deliberately have ignored REPEATEDLY: if the telemarketing companies would just have respected people's right to not get harrassed this never would have happened.

We could apply the above to everything: "If gunowners would've just abided by the law, we wouldn't have to crack down on them." "If companies would've stopped polluting the environment, we wouldn't need laws to stop them."

I'm sure we're both busy people. Let's just agree to disagree. I don't have to agree with everyone here about everything. :-)