February 16, 2012

The FCC Cracks Down on Those F*$%#! Robocallers

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Here is today’s installment of “Government Bureaucrats Working To Make Your Life Better.” Seriously. Behold the latest rule from the FCC:

After receiving thousands of complaints from consumers, the Federal Communications Commission clamped down Wednesday on unwanted robo-calling by approving sweeping changes to its telemarketing rules for wireline and mobile phones.

….Under the new FCC rules, telemarketers are required to obtain written consent, which can be in the form of an online approval, before placing autodialed or prerecorded calls to a consumer. Telemarketers also must provide an automated opt-out mechanism during each robo-call so that consumers can immediately tell the telemarketer to stop calling.

The FCC also eliminated the “established business relationship” exception, which had allowed robo-calls to be placed to the land-line home phones of consumers with “prior or existing” associations with companies represented by telemarketers.

I’m especially thrilled about the last bit. If my dentist (or whoever) wants to call to tell me something genuine (don’t forget your checkup tomorrow!), that’s fine. But if they just want to harass me endlessly with robocalls to sell me more stuff (we’re having a sale on tooth whitening!) then forget it. That’s an ordinary commercial telemarketing call and I want it stopped regardless of whether I happen to have set foot in their establishment before.

I have my doubts about how many robocallers actually care about the FCC’s rules, but I’m sure at least some of them do, and thus my life will be made ever so slightly better. So hooray for the FCC. These are your bureaucrats watching out for you.

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WE CAME UP SHORT.

We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

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And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

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