For
Release: March 28, 2003
FTC Proposes Fee Amendment to the
Telemarketing Sales Rule
Fee of $29 Per Area
Code Proposed for Sellers Accessing National "Do Not Call"
Registry
The Federal Trade Commission
today announced that it will issue a revised Notice of Proposed
Rulemaking (NPRM) to amend its Telemarketing Sales Rule (TSR),
adding a new section that would impose fees on entities
accessing the national "do not call" registry. The amendments,
if adopted, would among other things: require only sellers to
pay the annual fee for access to the national registry; propose
an annual fee of $29 per area code, with a maximum annual fee of
$7,250; allow access to up to five area codes for free; and, set
October 1, 2003 as the effective date for the "do not call"
provisions of the Amended TSR.
Additional revisions to the
Amended TSR would allow more entities to access the "do not
call" registry. Limiting access only to telemarketers, as
currently defined by the Rule, would prevent those entities that
are exempt from the FTC's jurisdiction from obtaining the
information necessary to scrub their lists, should they wish to
do so for customer-service reasons. Such limited access also may
prevent sellers from engaging in thorough Rule compliance, and
may unnecessarily hinder the services provided to the
telemarketing industry by list brokers and others. However, the
FTC emphasizes strongly that the information in the national
registry may be used for no purpose other than to stop unwanted
telemarketing calls.
Once a seller pays the required
fee, the FTC will provide it with a unique account number that
can be used to gain direct access to the national registry. The
seller can then provide this account number to any telemarketer
or list broker with which it does business. Additionally,
telemarketers who engage in telemarketing only on behalf of
others - i.e., telemarketers who are not also sellers -
would not be required to pay a separate fee for their access to
the registry. The only consumer information that companies will
receive from the national registry is each registrant's
telephone number.
The FTC recognizes that some
telemarketers conduct regional calling campaigns and, therefore,
will want access to only a portion of the database. To
accommodate these companies, the FTC proposes providing access
to the national registry based on the number of area codes
sought, at $29 per area code.
Consistent with recent
legislation, the implementation costs of the "do not call"
provisions of the Amended TSR are estimated at $18.1 million for
fiscal year 2003. The FTC seeks comments on a broad range of
issues, including its estimate of the number of entities that
will access the registry and the number of area codes the
average entity will purchase.
To come into compliance with
the Amended TSR's "do not call" provisions by the effective date
of October 1, 2003, all covered sellers would be required to
access the registry for the first time between September 1 and
September 30, 2003.
The FTC vote to publish the
Federal Register notice was 5-0. A revised notice of proposed
rulemaking will be published in the Federal Register shortly.
Public comments will be accepted until May 1, 2003, after which
the Commission will decide whether to make the proposed changes
final. The FTC encourages comments to be submitted
electronically to
feerule@ftc.gov. Commenters may also submit an original plus
two paper copies of their comments to the Office of the
Secretary, Room 159, Federal Trade Commission, 600 Pennsylvania
Avenue, N.W., Washington, DC 20580. |