TELEMARKETERS would be prohibited from blocking their telephone numbers on caller-identification equipment under a bill the House of Representatives approved last month 420 to 0.
The Know-Your-Caller Act, sponsored by Sen. Bill Frist (R-TN), has moved to the Senate.
Both the House and Senate bills would amend the Communications Act of 1934 to prohibit telemarketers from blocking their phone numbers and to require the Federal Communications Commission to develop rules and regulations.
The House measure also requires telemarketers to maintain do-not-call lists and prohibits them from selling or otherwise transferring those lists to anyone for marketing purposes. Senate passage of the bill without those provisions would automatically send both pieces of legislation to a conference committee to reconcile.
The Direct Marketing Association “basically supports” the House bill, but is concerned with its treatment of do-not-call lists, according to Richard A. Barton, the DMA’s senior vice president for congressional matters.
“While the intention in the bill is to say that telemarketers cannot rent their do-not-call lists for marketing purposes, which is standard under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act, the actual language in the bill is not clear,” Barton says. “We’d like to see the conference committee clarify that and several other minor technical points in the bill.”
Network
