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France to ban unsolicited telemarketing calls

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Re: France to ban unsolicited telemarketing calls

#221

Post by MrDOS »

4bpp wrote: post #184
Kon5ole wrote: post #11

Great idea! Telemarketers have ruined the phone network for me. I haven't answered an unknown call for the past 10 years, which sometimes means I miss important ones. 99.9% of all calls are an attempt to get money, and the 0.1% that's a dentist appointment, a friend that changed numbers or whatever become collateral damage. A ban is the right idea but I wonder how they can handle it, logistically. I think there needs…

I never understood what are the technical obstacles to building the phone network in such a way that caller numbers can not be spoofed or suppressed. Then, you could just build a system where receiving an unsolicited phone call from a commercial entity entitles you to a compensation in small claims court, to the tune of 50 EUR, unless the caller can prove that you explicitly authorised them.

Historically, in a world of analogue phone lines, spoofed phone numbers were a legitimate feature: if my business has more than one phone line, each of those lines is going to have its own distinct number; but I'm going to want outgoing calls from any of those lines to appear to originate from the same number (the one that I put on my promotional material, invoices, etc.).

Much the same as e-mail, identity within the phone system was, historically, entirely built on trust (because only Ma Bell could make configuration changes, and they could verify that what their customer was asking them to do was legit). Those assumptions were carried through deregulation, and are very deeply entrenched in the technical design of the network. Changing them will hopefully become easier over the next few years as analogue service is turned off entirely (e.g., BT/OR in the UK are set to turn off all analogue phone service by the end of January 2027).

Re: France to ban unsolicited telemarketing calls

#222

Post by embedding-shape »

black_knight wrote: post #214
embedding-shape wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Spain we have something called "Lista Robinson" (in Sweden exists something similar, called "NIX-registret") which are basically opt-in lists where you can enter your phone number, then once the new lists been distributed, the telemarketing companies cannot call you, if they're doing things properly. If they call anyway, you just mention you're on the list, they hang up, and remove your number from the list they h…

Same in Norway. I have been on the list for decades, and I never receive any unwanted calls – except from my mother (j.k love you mum!) I am not sure why it works so well here. I have vague recollections of news articles about it being ignored in the past. I guess they just struck down hard on those. Also, I imagine if you put yourself on that list you would be really grumpy if someone called to try to sell you somet…

> I am not sure why it works so well here.

I'm guessing (since Norway and Sweden tends to be more similar than different) that Norway also have something similar to the Swedish "Marknadsföringslagen" ("The Marketing Act") that effectively outlaws companies from calling people who obviously don't want to be called. They quite literally get fines if they call people on these lists, hence the companies actively cross-reference against them.

I've worked in cold-calling telemarketing in both Sweden and Spain in my previous life, both companies I worked for were deadly afraid of accidentally calling people on these lists, and actively instructed employees to basically say "Sorry", hang up and flag the number if someone mentioned the name of the lists.

Re: France to ban unsolicited telemarketing calls

#223

Post by Lvl999Noob »

tlogan wrote: post #220

The main problem and challenge with all these regulations is enforcement. How are they actually going to enforce them? The U.S. already has very strict rules against unsolicited calls, yet I still get around 20 spam calls a day saying things like "press 2 to be connected" or offering some "$64K loan." At the same time, I have not received a single unsolicited call from a reputable company. The same is true for text m…

Have an LLM listen in on all the calls and automatically flag unsolicited calls?

Re: France to ban unsolicited telemarketing calls

#224

Post by embedding-shape »

rightbyte wrote: post #218
embedding-shape wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Most countries have these no call lists but they are fairly useless as there is no enforcement What country are you in that it doesn't work in? I know for a fact it works in Spain and Sweden, but it'll really depend on the country. You'd help by others by being a bit more explicit :) > I've even heard stories of some scammers exclusively using such lists, as they are pre-verified! That does suck and seems counter-p…

It works versus serious companies cold calling you. Scammers and semi-scammers still call. There is some need to adress what it doesn't solve too.

Dude, what country? In Spain or Sweden, I literally don't receive any calls from unknowns anymore, scammers nor telemarketing. Please specify the country so we can know what country you're talking about, and what the name of the list you enrolled in is.

Worth knowing for people who might not know; large telemarketing companies have campaigns on the internet to spread FUD about the effectiveness of these lists, so less people enroll. I'm not claiming that you is one of these, but unless we're being clear what lists/countries we're talking about here, it's borderline FUD rather than helpful to the conversation.

Re: France to ban unsolicited telemarketing calls

#226

Post by jraph »

Telaneo wrote: post #205
jraph wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah, I see! I was a bit annoyed by you seemingly pointlessly correcting the parent, but now I understand your PoV. > In context, me saying 'You can just do that' means 'You should do that' That's not very consistent. You wrote that whether they should was another question. > (barring there being good reason, which I haven't seen so far) I disagree with you. Someone being autonomous is a good reason for not wanting to…

> I disagree with you. Someone being autonomous is a good reason for not wanting to take a decision for them against their will. Tell that to society at large. No man is an island. It's a sensible default and should be enabled as such. They wouldn't know the difference if it already were. If they can articulate a specific and valid reason as to why they don't want it that way, then fair. It should be an option open t…

> I disagree on the reason given being good.

Okay, that's what you probably implied in your first reply, and I think that's what's actually interesting to discuss.

I don't think not acting against someone's will is a question of mere politeness. In social care, it's often considered mistreatment to do so.

For instance if it is not considered that an adult who's not otherwise autonomous can't express consent and doesn't want to take their pills, social workers normally shouldn't (and legally can't) force them to take them, even if it's good for them.

At least where I live.

Not all act against someone's will is mistreatment, but it definitely goes beyond politeness.

Re: France to ban unsolicited telemarketing calls

#227

Post by inigyou »

4bpp wrote: post #184
Kon5ole wrote: post #11

Great idea! Telemarketers have ruined the phone network for me. I haven't answered an unknown call for the past 10 years, which sometimes means I miss important ones. 99.9% of all calls are an attempt to get money, and the 0.1% that's a dentist appointment, a friend that changed numbers or whatever become collateral damage. A ban is the right idea but I wonder how they can handle it, logistically. I think there needs…

I never understood what are the technical obstacles to building the phone network in such a way that caller numbers can not be spoofed or suppressed. Then, you could just build a system where receiving an unsolicited phone call from a commercial entity entitles you to a compensation in small claims court, to the tune of 50 EUR, unless the caller can prove that you explicitly authorised them.

The problem is that it's a network. The hard part of networking isn't the technology - it's the other people. And short of a government regulation or a monopoly, they'll never all agree.

STIR/SHAKEN has an exception for calls passing through TDM trunks, which don't support it. This created a small industry for passing spam calls through TDM trunks. Such calls can trivially have their caller ID spoofed.

Re: France to ban unsolicited telemarketing calls

#228

Post by sschueller »

I hope they can make it work

We have a ban on telemarketing calls regarding insurance in Switzerland. But we still get them.

So what happens is that insurance agents (which are required to be licensed) don't call them selves. Instead they use 3rd party call centers outside the country which make the calls. They "warmup" the clients to get a meeting in which the agent then in a visit can make the sale.

For law enforcement to punish these people and revoke their licenses they would need to do costly sting operation which they can only do so much.

Re: France to ban unsolicited telemarketing calls

#229

Post by ornornor »

Lvl999Noob wrote: post #223
tlogan wrote: post #220

The main problem and challenge with all these regulations is enforcement. How are they actually going to enforce them? The U.S. already has very strict rules against unsolicited calls, yet I still get around 20 spam calls a day saying things like "press 2 to be connected" or offering some "$64K loan." At the same time, I have not received a single unsolicited call from a reputable company. The same is true for text m…

Have an LLM listen in on all the calls and automatically flag unsolicited calls?

That’s a terrible idea. Just think about privacy, pollution, cost.

Re: France to ban unsolicited telemarketing calls

#230

Post by inigyou »

elfly wrote: post #203
4bpp wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I never understood what are the technical obstacles to building the phone network in such a way that caller numbers can not be spoofed or suppressed. Then, you could just build a system where receiving an unsolicited phone call from a commercial entity entitles you to a compensation in small claims court, to the tune of 50 EUR, unless the caller can prove that you explicitly authorised them.

It would work until you need to route an international call. And there's a lot of telemarketing and scams happening across country lines. I mean, they should still do it. It's just the first problem they'd face.

That's fine. International calls pay a dollar a minute. If telemarketers had to pay that they'd be out of business.
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