FTC Proposes Raising Telemarketers' Access Fees to National Do Not Call Registry

The Federal Trade Commission on Friday, April 28 announced it had approved the publication of a notice of proposed rulemaking in the Federal Register that would amend the Telemarketing Sales Rule to revise the fees charged for industry access to the National Do Not Call (DNC) Registry. To date, consumers have placed approximately 122.6 million telephone numbers on the registry.

The Direct Marketing Association is reviewing the FTC?s proposal to determine its impact on members.

As detailed in the notice that will soon be published, the FTC is accepting comments on the proposed fee changes until June 1, 2006. To view the 24-page notice regarding the fee hike, visit http://www.ftc.gov/os/2006/04/P034305TSRFeesNPRandRequestforPublicCommentFRNotice.pdf.

However, the FTC said that, pending public comment, the new fee schedule will go into effect on September 1, 2006.

Under the proposed new fee structure, the annual fee for each area code of data accessed would become $62, and the maximum amount charged to entities accessing 280 area codes or more would become $17,050.

The proposed rulemaking would continue to allow telemarketers to obtain the first five area codes of data for free.

It also would still allow those entities exempt from the registry?s requirements to obtain access at no charge.

The FTC is, however, requesting comments on whether telemarketers should still be permitted to access a certain number of area codes for free and address the potential impact of a change to this provision.

Telemarketers are required to renew their subscriptions to the National Do Not Call Registry once a year, and must ?scrub? their call lists once every 31 days.

The Do Not Call Web site for telemarketers (www.telemarketing.donotcall.gov) will inform them when their subscription account numbers (SANs) expire and give them renewal instructions.

The FTC is accepting public comments ? via hardcopy or the Web ? until Thursday, June 1, 2006.