Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

France to ban unsolicited telemarketing calls

lemonde.fr

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

231–240 of 527 posts

Re: France to ban unsolicited telemarketing calls

#231

Post by daneel_w »

mattrighetti wrote: post #189

I think Italy did something similar a couple of years ago. You would need to put your number in a special register to opt-out of these calls. I don't know if this ever worked or not, but giving your number to government feels odd to me so I never signed up. It's a lot more simple to just outright block unknown callers.

Sweden has such a system*, and a couple of related laws, since the early 2000s. In my personal experience it works very well here, and I've never heard friends or acquaintances complain either about getting unsolicited calls despite having signed up on the list. An identical system would of course not perform equally in any other country, depending on local "telephone culture" and general moralities.

* https://nixtelefon.org/

Re: France to ban unsolicited telemarketing calls

#232

Post by Telaneo »

jraph wrote: post #226
Telaneo wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

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

The reason given by the person in question was politeness. I'm not talking about whether or it's polite to change this setting.

> For instance if it is considered that an adult who's not autonomous can 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.

That's because 'I want to die' is a valid reason. Or at least it should be. I doubt that social workers actually come to their conclusions from that framework. They probably do it like you said; simply acting against autonomy is itself bad within their framework, but this is inconsistent with society's behaviour at large.

Similarly, if GP's grandmother's reason was 'I want to receive random spam calls and calls from telemarketers' or 'I have friends overseas who might not be able to reach me', then I'd have nothing to say. Those are valid reasons. On the other hand, perceived potential impoliteness, which actually isn't, is not.

Re: France to ban unsolicited telemarketing calls

#233

Post by reaperducer »

How is this possible?

We have been chided over and over and over again on HN by the fine citizens of the E.U. that unsolicited telemarketing calls are purely an American problem, are completely unheard of in Europe, and that this never happens in "civilized" nations with "a functioning legal system."

Re: France to ban unsolicited telemarketing calls

#234

Post by epolanski »

wpietri wrote: post #176
epolanski wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't need to ban telemarketing, you just need to make void and nulls contracts made by phone. Do so, and 99% of telemarketers no longer have the incentive to call anybody.

Walk me through an example here. I'm a telemarketer who calls you up, sells you on something, and charges your card. What changes in that scenario?

You can't charge nobody's card because in order to do so you'd first need to sign a verbal contract.

Re: France to ban unsolicited telemarketing calls

#235

Post by jraph »

Telaneo wrote: post #232
jraph wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

> I don't think (not) acting against someone's will is a question of mere politeness. In social care, it's often considered mistreatment. The reason given by the person in question was politeness. I'm not talking about whether or it's polite to change this setting. > For instance if it is considered that an adult who's not autonomous can express consent and doesn't want to take their pills, social workers normally sh…

Ah, by "reason", you meant the grandmother's reason!

Yeah, I don't think that's a good reason neither. Now, it not being a good reason is not a pass to act against her will either.

I think OP needs to convince her that it's a bad reason first.

> That's because 'I want to die' is a valid reason. Or at least it should be

That's a very reasonable reason not to want to take a pill, but that's not even necessarily the actual reason. Often the reason is completely unknown. Possibly the person refusing the pills doesn't really know why they are refusing it / doesn't even have good reasons. The actual reasons behind the refusal doesn't theoretically matter much in whether they should be forced to take the pills. They should only matter to convince them that they should take the pill for their own good. (the reality is probably more "dirty" than that though)

> simply acting against autonomy is itself bad within their framework, but this is inconsistent with society's behaviour at large.

Possibly, but, depending on what you mean:

* society at large acting against autonomy isn't necessarily a good thing / a good justification for doing it. Society at large needs a fix.

* fighting fire with fire is not necessarily the right approach

Re: France to ban unsolicited telemarketing calls

#236

Post by bonzini »

inigyou wrote: post #230
elfly wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

International calls pay whatever the caller network wants them to pay. You're assuming that the caller network isn't part of the scam.

Re: France to ban unsolicited telemarketing calls

#237

Post by dominicrose »

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 think there needs to be a technical solution.

If the threat of an 999999 $£€ fine per call isn't enough.

I opted in to a block list and after a few months received much less calls, but still more than zero. I think that now that everyone is on the block list by default companies will have to be more careful and it will be easier to report any issue.

Re: France to ban unsolicited telemarketing calls

#238

Post by bluefirebrand »

robertlagrant wrote: post #211
joenot443 wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We have a similar list in America [1] and Canada [2]. Unfortunately, like any regulation, its efficacy is only as good as its enforcement, so my understanding is they're both routinely ignored. Particularly grim for the Canadian case - > In January 2009, numerous media and consumer advocacy organizations reported that anyone can use false information pretending to be a telemarketer and download a set of numbers from…

> anyone can use false information pretending to be a telemarketer I suppose many people would wonder what the difference is between a legitimate caller you don't want and a fake one.

If you have a policy of never giving these people the time of day, then it's no different

If you're the sort of person that is too polite to just hang up and you might get hooked by a scam caller because you let them talk to you, then it's a big difference

Re: France to ban unsolicited telemarketing calls

#239

Post by reaperducer »

embedding-shape wrote: post #194
ferngodfather wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most countries have these no call lists but they are fairly useless as there is no enforcement. I've even heard stories of some scammers exclusively using such lists, as they are pre-verified!

> 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…

What country are you in that it doesn't work in?

Maybe he's in France, since this article is about France having to ban all telemarketing calls since the block lists apparently don't work.

Don't let your regional indignation get in the way of doing basic logic.

Re: France to ban unsolicited telemarketing calls

#240

Post by ungreased0675 »

germandiago wrote: post #23
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…

At the other side of the spectrum (they are mostly annoying, I agree) how do you keep promoting or selling your product if yiu cannot find your customers?

I’ve never gotten a cold call for a quality, useful product. It’s either scams or scam-adjacent.

Same thing with door-to-door salespeople. Seems like in the past the percentage of people selling useful stuff like cleaning products, Avon, or yard service was higher. Now it seems to be out of town companies selling solar scams, roof inspection, or some other multi-thousand dollar thing sold via high-pressure sales.

Post reply on HN