February 7, 2002 | Read Time: 2 minutes
Proposed changes in federal rules governing commercial telemarketing would extend those rules to cover calls made by companies seeking charitable contributions.
Current rules applying to companies that peddle goods and services over the phone already limit the hours in which such calls may be made, require that callers first identify themselves and disclose why they are soliciting, and prohibit calls to someone who has asked not to be called again. The proposed changes, which Congress sought last fall as part of its anti-terrorism legislation, would place the same restrictions on companies working to raise money for charities.
The Federal Trade Commission drafted the rules in an attempt to prevent deceptive telemarketing practices and to enable consumers to exert greater control over when and whether to receive telemarketing calls in their homes.
But the changes, which drew criticism when the bill was passed in October (The Chronicle, November 15), continue to upset some within the nonprofit world. The existing rules, now nearly six years old, have resulted in judgments against telemarketers totaling more than $152-million in consumer compensation and $500,000 in civil penalties.
Lee M. Cassidy, executive director of the Direct Marketing Association Nonprofit Federation, says he thinks it is a mistake to lump fund-raising companies together with other commercial telemarketers. “Seeing the two in juxtaposition in the same document gives me fits, because they are treating telemarketing solicitations requesting support the same as a phone call trying to sell razor blades or life insurance or a refrigerator,” Mr. Cassidy says. “It ignores the constitutional distinction between charitable speech and commercial speech.”
He says he also believes that the FTC’s decision to regulate telemarketing on behalf of charities is illegal, since nonprofit groups are exempt from that agency’s jurisdiction. Under law, he says, government cannot seek to do indirectly what it is barred from doing directly.
The proposed rules would also establish a national “Do Not Call” directory of consumers who have asked not to be called at home by telemarketers other than those to whom they have given express permission.
The FTC has scheduled a public meeting for June 5-7 to discuss issues raised during the comment period for the amended telemarketing sales rules.
More information is available at the commission’s Web site, http://www.ftc.gov, or by contacting Catherine Harrington-McBride, (202) 326-2452, cmcbride@ftc.gov; Karen Leonard, (202) 326-3597, kleonard@ftc.gov; or Carole Danielson, (202) 326-3115, cdanielson@ftc.gov.
