Telemarketing Bills

Anti-Telemarketing Drums Keep Beating

Legislation that would severely curtail newspapers’ telemarketing efforts to obtain new subscribers moved forward in Delaware recently while a similar bill was introduced in the District of Columbia. Both bills would establish do-not-call lists prohibiting telemarketers from calling any consumer who chooses to be on the lists.

Newspapers generally rely on telemarketing for 60 percent of their new subscribers.

The Delaware bill, SB 41, which passed the Senate May 16, does not cover credit card companies, insurance companies and stockbrokers because they are exempted in the existing Delaware law. An effort to amend SB 41 to include those interests failed by one vote.

After that occurred, an amendment supported by the MDDC Press Association to exempt newspapers from the bill was proposed and soundly defeated. In the House, the bill has been assigned to the Telecommunications Internet and Technology Committee.

MDDC lobbyist Mike Cochran said he is hopeful that efforts to block the bill’s release from committee this year will succeed. The first session of the two-year Delaware General Assembly ends on the 30th of this month. The second session convenes in January, and the bill will still be alive then if there is no action on it this month, Cochran noted.

In the District, the legislation was introduced this spring by Council Chairman Linda W. Cropp and cosponsored by eight of the other 12 members. It is scheduled for a public hearing July 11, and MDDC plans to testify in opposition.