April 4, 1999

E-COMMERCE / Services Offer Break From Unwanted Sales Pitches

COMPANIES WANT consumers to know about and hopefully purchase their products and services, bottom line. According to a report by the Direct Marketing Association, corporations spend more than $24 billion a year on direct mail advertising and telemarketing to inform the public about their products and services. That expense helped spur direct mail and telemarketing related sales figures of more than $267 billion last year, according to DMA reports.

With companies allocating such amounts, consumers have been left to fend off the increasing advertising intrusions into their homes, like the call, right at dinner time, from a chimney sweeper.

There may now be a way around those aggressive tactics. Telemarketing companies and direct mail advertisers find customers by purchasing lists of names from marketing firms that include addresses and telephone numbers of consumers. This type of hit-or-miss sales approach is both costly to advertisers and aggravating to consumers. In a new service being touted by the company as a first of its kind, San Francisco-based populardemand is offering consumers a way to cut down on and possibly eliminate unwanted direct mail and telemarketing calls. According to the company Web site, www.unlistMe.com, populardemand will work to remove those who request the service from direct mail and telemarketing lists for the rest of the consumer's life at no cost.

After the initial membership registration, which asks for the consumer's name, e-mail address, street address and telephone number, the Web site will ask to enroll consumers in a program designed to give members a way to get information and deals on products that interest them without worrying about being bombarded with e-mail, direct mail and phone calls.

"Our goal is to give consumers a safe haven where they are in control and their privacy is respected," said Shyamala Reddy, vice president of product development for populardemand in a released statement.

Another service, Call Compliance.com Inc., also offers consumers the ability to add their names to do-not-call lists by offering a service called Telestop. After subscribing, which carries an annual fee of $7.50 to block one or two telephone numbers, Glen Cove-based CCI will add that subscriber's name to their do-not-call list, which is then distributed to all telemarketers and other telephone/fax solicitors that subscribe to CCI's Teleblock service.

Teleblock is an automated blocking service that enables telemarketing companies to have phone calls blocked to all individuals and businesses listed on a telemarketers do-not-call list. According to CCI, Teleblock is provided to companies at a very nominal charge, the only stipulation being that the company must sign up with long-distance telephone carriers who have connection agreements with CCI. CCI's Web
site is at www.callcompliance.com.

Some industry members are wary about what third-party agencies like CCI and populardemand will actually be able to accomplish. According to Chet Dalzell, spokesman for the DMA, it's very important that consumers understand exactly what it is that they are being promised and that companies actually deliver what they claim. "Consumers need to make an informed decision rather than an emotional one," Dalzell said. "We want people to be able to receive the information on products that they desire and not to simply receive nothing from now on." Consumers are also afforded protection from unwanted solicitation in their homes under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act of 1991 that sets forth guidelines that telemarketers must follow, including limiting the calls to the period between 8 a.m and 9 p.m., and maintaining a "do not call list" and honoring any requests to not be called again. According to the TCPA, when such a request is received, the requester may not be called again. Companies that violate that policy are subject to criminal prosecution.

Copyright 1999, Newsday Inc.

E-COMMERCE / Services Offer Break From Unwanted Sales Pitches., 04-12-1999,
pp C07.