FTC Workshop on the TSR Wrap Up

Contents:

From Wednesday June 3 through Friday June 4, the FTC hosted the workshop (hearings) on their proposed rule changes in the Telesales Rules. In anticipation of overwhelming public interest, the FTC moved the workshop from the FTC to the Marriott Wardman Park Convention Hotel.

The FTC thought there could be as many as 700 people wanting to get into the sessions. As it turned out, the public interest was greatly over estimated and the largest "crowd" for any part of the workshop was probably no larger than 80 people.

There were 13 separate panels covering the following areas:

1. Proposed National No Call Registry
2. Implementation of the Proposed National No Call System
3. Implementation - Consumer Registration and Use Issues
4. Implementation - Industry Perspective
5. Predictive Dialers
6. Caller ID
7. Proposed Changes to Various Deceptive Practices Provisions
8. Preacquired Account Information
9. Up-selling and Cross-Selling
10. Express Verifiable Authorization
11. USA PATRIOT Act: Amendments
12. Prison-based Telemarketing
13. Proposed Changes to the Exemptions to the TSR

The DMA participated in all 13 panels. Jerry Cersale and Michael Faulkner from the DMA and Ron Plesser, Esq. from Piper Marbury Rudnick & Wolfe represented the DMA position and the interests of the teleservices industry.

More details on the workshops will be available later.