It is conception day. Nine months from now, you will be able to register for Canada’s telemarketing Do Not Call List.
In what is likely its final act of the year, the CRTC has selected Bell Canada to build and operate Canada’s telemarketing DNCL database. The Commission has awarded Bell a 5-year contract, noting that it was the only bidder to have submitted a compliant response to the CRTC’s RFP last summer.
The contract calls for the list to be operating by the end of September, 2008.
Customers who don’t want to wait can take matters into their own hands by switching to Primus, as I wrote earlier this month.
I have noticed an increase in the number of annoying calls from credit card companies and vacation resorts using IVRs and caller ID blocking. It is unclear to me how the DNCL will help. But that is a moot point, considering that the DNCL is mandated by statute. Our parliamentarians had a case of database envy – after all, we wouldn’t want to fall further behind those Americans, could we?