DMA Calls FTC Do-Not-Call List For Marketers A New And Unreasonable Tax On Business
NEW YORK, July 29, 2003 – The Direct Marketing Association (The DMA) called today's announcement by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) – forcing marketers to pay over $7,300 annually for access to the government-run do-not-call list – a new and unreasonable tax on doing business. By contrast, The DMA’s own do-not-call list, which DMA members are required to use as a condition of membership, costs only $700 dollars per year and is operated on a break-even basis.
"This fee structure is a new and unreasonably high tax for a new government program, which when first proposed was supposed to cost only $3 million to administer and is now projected to cost $18 million – a six fold increase, with no end in sight," said Jerry Cerasale, senior vice president government affairs, The DMA. "The FTC should establish a more reasonable fee structure to access its no-call list."
Also, to maximize utilization of The DMA’s Telephone Preference Service (TPS), the Association permits teleservices bureaus to purchase the TPS file once and use it for all of their customers’ telemarketing campaigns. Alarmingly, under the FTC program, each marketer and each subsidiary will be required to purchase the list separately.
The DMA said a more reasonable payment system is necessary to:
- Make compliance as economical as possible,
- Mitigate the economic consequences that the government-run do-not-call list is already expected to cause.
The DMA is the leading trade association for businesses interested in interactive and database marketing, with nearly 4,700 member companies from the United States and 53 other nations. Founded in 1917, its members include direct marketers from every business segment as well as the nonprofit and electronic marketing sectors. Included are catalogers, Internet retailers and service providers, financial services providers, book and magazine publishers, book and music clubs, retail stores, industrial manufacturers and a host of other vertical segments, including the service industries that support them. According to a DMA-commissioned study, direct and interactive marketing sales in the United States is projected to surpass $2 trillion in 2002, including $126 billion in catalog sales and $34 billion in sales generated by the Internet. The DMA's Web site is www.the-dma.org, and its consumer Web site is www.shopthenet.org.
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