DMA Praises FTC for Improving Accuracy of National Do Not Call Registry by Addressing List Hygiene Issues

November 11, 2008 — Direct Marketing Association (DMA) President and CEO John A. Greco, Jr. yesterday praised the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) for improving the accuracy of the National Do Not Call Registry by hiring an outside contractor to remove disconnected, reassigned and abandoned phone numbers from the registry. The action, which was encouraged and prompted by DMA, was highlighted in the FTC’s report to Congress Regarding the Accuracy of the Do Not Call Registry pursuant to the Do-Not-Call Improvement Act of 2007 (DNCIA).

“Since the Do Not Call Registry was first implemented in 2003, DMA has been aware that thousands, if not millions, of phone numbers were on the registry erroneously,” said Greco. “These numbers belonged to businesses, which are exempt from the Registry, individuals whose phone numbers had been reassigned due to relocation, or were fax numbers wrongly placed on the Registry. We worked closely with Congress, particularly with Senators Inouye, Dorgan, and Pryor and Representatives Dingell and Rush, on the DNCIA that called for this report and with the FTC to correct the errors in the Registry, and we are pleased to see these efforts come to fruition through the FTC’s action.”

To date, more than 157 million phone numbers are on the National Do Not Call Registry, which became law in February of 2008 through the Do Not Call Improvement Act of 2007. Under the Act, the FTC had been removing telephone numbers that have been disconnected and reassigned to other customers. With its new procedures, adopted at the urging and with the cooperation of the DMA, the FTC will remove 5 percent of landline phone numbers that are incorrectly included on the Do Not Call Registry. In addition, the FTC expects to purge another approximately 0.5 percent of incorrectly listed phone numbers each month.

“It is in the best interests of our members, consumers, the government and businesses to have a clean, accurate list,” added Greco. “We appreciate the FTC’s willingness to work with us on this important issue and we look forward to working with them to improve the accuracy of the list.”

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