The National Do Not Call Registry is the New Millennium's first example of America's raw consumer power -- the real fuel that makes the nation's economy go -- or not.

Consumers will shop until they drop, but most often not if you call them at home to hawk your goods and services.

The owners of more than 50 million telephones have made that clear.

Since the Federal Trade and Federal Communication commissions opened the national Do-Not-Call registry this summer, federal workers have been busy adding more than 50 million telephones numbers -- often at the rate of 1 million or more per day. They are phone numbers of people who do not want telemarketers to call them.

There are an estimated 103 million households in the U.S. and most, 96 percent of them, have at least one phone, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

Certainly not all of the more than 50 million registered do-not-call telephone numbers are in households. A relatively small, but unknown portion of them likely include the numbers of cell phones, business phones and numbers of other phones not connected inside homes.

But because consumer telemarketers have made a science of "cold" calling consumers at home -- typically right at dinner time -- it's a good bet most of the registered numbers are telephone numbers that ring inside households that don't like telemarketing calls.

The hue and cry against consumer telemarketers phoning homes has been so overwhelming, President George W. Bush conducted a brief televised press conference Monday, Sept. 29 to sign a do-not-call law written and passed in record U.S. legislative time and with unprecedented bipartisan support. The new law, written in response to the telemarketing industry's constitutional and other challenges to the registry, officially authorizes the registry's administration by the FCC and FTC. On the same day, Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer refused to block implementation of the federal registry, set to kick off today, Oct. 1, 2003.

If the registry moves forward, telemarketers who don't listen to those who own the more than 50 million phones, to President Bush, to the U.S. Congress and to the Supreme Court, they will be fined as much as $11,000 for each illegal call.

"While many good people work in the telemarketing industry, the public is understandably losing patience with these unwanted phone calls, unwanted intrusions. And given a choice, Americans prefer not to receive random sales pitches at all hours of the day. And the American people should be free to restrict these calls," Bush said in a prepared statement.

More than simply losing patience, consumers who don't want telemarketing would make comments that could not be printed here.

Kicking and screaming, the $300-billion-a-year consumer telemarketing sales industry continues to make challenges against the registry, but those challenges are becoming moot.

"The Do Not Call Registry is still being challenged in court. Yet, the conclusion of the American people and the legislative branch and the executive branch is beyond question," Bush added.

Consumer telemarketing won't end -- some people actually want the annoying calls -- but millions of consumers already have the right to hang up on telemarketing. The registry was designed to make it easier to enjoy that right.

If the telemarketing industry continues to pretend to misunderstand "No" and somehow manages to block implementation of the registry, it likely will face the wallet-wielding wrath of tens of millions of consumers who retain the right to privacy -- the right to individually tell each company and telemarketers that companies hire, "Don't call back".

Federal law, do-not-call list notwithstanding, gives consumers the right to ask any company not to call and that company must honor the request, even if you have an established business relationship, even if you don't use the federal or a state registry.

Just say "No" and say it out loud, because the telemarketing industry doesn't appear to be listening. You can prohibit individual telemarketers and any company from calling back, one by one, by asking them to put you on their company's do-not-call list.

The action protects the telemarketers' right to free speech as well as your explicit right to privacy.

It's a right even the powerful multi-billion dollar telemarketing industry cannot usurp.

Published: October 1, 2003

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Broderick Perkins parlayed a career in old-school journalism into a contemporary digital news service that really hits home. The award-winning consumer journalist, originally from Wilmington, DE, is founder, publisher and executive editor of the bootstrap DeadlineNews Group, a Silicon Valley-based editorial content and consulting service specializing in residential real estate, consumer news and related editorial consulting services. The DeadlineNews Group includes the website, DeadlineNews.com, offering real estate editorial content and consulting services, and its back shop, the Deadline Newsroom, an open house on news that really hits home. Perkins obtained his formal journalism education from University of Delaware and a journalism boot camp, the Institute of Journalism Education at the University of California-Berkeley. He went on to 20 years of service as a daily newspaper journalist at the Wilmington, DE News Journal and San Jose, CA Mercury News. Perkins covered housing on the San Jose Mercury News reporting team which earned a General News Reporting Pulitzer Prize in 1989 for coverage of the Loma Prieta earthquake. He has also produced real estate, consumer and small business content for the Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, RealtyTimes.com, Nolo.com, Better Homes and Gardens, the National Association of Realtors, Homestore/Move and Intuit/Quicken among more than three dozen publications. In addition to managing the DeadlineNews Group, Perkins most recently served as chief editorial consultant for Nolo's Essential Guide To Buying Your First Home, Nolo, and writes real estate television scripts for RealtyTimes.com.