Spam: So in the past 2 weeks, I’ve been called 3 times to ‘take part in a survey’. That’s compared to prior history before the do-not-call law took effect, which was absolutely no survey calls before on this number — but plenty of telemarketing calls.
Of course, I’m sure these surveys are all companies keen to get my considered opinion, rather than phone-spam scum exploiting one of the blindingly obvious loopholes in the federal do-not-call list legislation. Sure.
BTW, that loophole seems to be there due to an oversight issue — it seems the FTC doesn’t have jurisdiction over telephone surveyors. However, this page notes that the FTC staff are prepared to prosecute callers who attempt to subvert the act:
For example, if a survey call asks a consumer if he or she would be interested in purchasing a type of service or merchandise, and that information then is used to contact the consumer to encourage such purchases, the survey call is considered telemarketing and subject to the Do Not Call restrictions.
Which is all well and good, but I’m not going to hang around for 10 minutes of ‘what long-distance company do you use?’ in order to differentiate ‘good’ surveys from ‘bad’ ones; I’ll just hang up straight away.
Sport: Ben forwards this story — the US baseball team has failed to qualify for the next Olympics. Yes, baseball. And no, I didn’t know that other countries had genuine baseball teams.