‘Jury still out' on Canadian Do Not Call List, says MRIA

CANADA-- The Marketing Research and Intelligence Association (MRIA) has said “the jury is still out” on Canada's Do Not Call List (DNCL), which was launched last September to allow people to opt out of receiving telemarketing calls.

Writing in the latest issue of its Vue magazine, MRIA executive director Brendan Wycks said that the lack of available hard data made it impossible to judge whether the service had been successful in reducing unwanted phone calls.

Wycks said the MRIA and the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) – the DNCL's operator and regulator – will carry out a survey later this year into Canadians' satisfaction with the service.

Market research is one of the categories exempt from the list, along with newspapers, charities and political parties and Wycks said the CRTC has received thousands of complaints since November about exemptions, but of these, “very few” related to research firms.

Meanwhile, Michael Geist, the privacy campaigner who started an alternative to the DNCL, iOptOut, has labelled the official list a “disaster” in his latest newspaper column.

Geist claims that exemptions to the DNCL mean that an estimated 80% of cold calls are not covered and urged the CRTC to penalise companies that ignore the legislation. He said that to date, no penalties had been handed out by CRTC in response to complaints about companies breaching the DNCL rules.

Author: James Verrinder

Related links:

Canadian researchers welcome ‘do not call' exemption

MRIA considers legal action over blog and newspaper comments

MRIA demands apology from iOptOut founder