Federal No-Call Bill Enacted

LawMeme reports that Pres. Bush has signed the Do-Not-Call Implementation Act into law. It's now P.L. 108-10. The Federal Trade Commission will implement a national do-not-call registry, which will allow people to opt out of receiving telemarketing calls. The Implementation Act gives the FTC authority to collect fees for the registry in order to fund the system.

The FTC has already revised its telemarketing rules at 18 C.F.R. 310.4(b)(1)(iii)(B), stating that

It is an abusive telemarketing act or practice and a violation of this Rule for a telemarketer to engage in, or for a seller to cause a telemarketer to engage in ... [i]initiating any outbound call to a person when... that person's telephone number is on the "do-not-call" registry, maintained by the Commission, of persons who do not wish to receive outbound telephone calls to induce the purchase of goods or services....

The rule excludes situations where the caller has express written permission, when the caller and person called have an established business relationship and the customer has not expressly refused telemarketing calls, and numerous calls for charitable, political, and other purposes. You can find a press release and sidebar links to the regulations at the FTC web site here.

The Act also directs the Federal Communications Commission to amend its rules in consultation with the FTC.

The GPO doesn't have the new law online yet, but the Library of Congress has the bill text. The drafting of section 2, the main operative section, provides an unfortunate example of why passive voice annoys readers.