In article SA5WBF91@cc.swarthmore.edu, hirai@cc.swarthmore.edu (Eiji Hirai) writes:
>If you're really interested in stopping calls from coming into your home,
>get a free brochure from:
>
> Private Citizen
> Box 233
> Naperville, IL 60566
I have no doubt this unique "outfit" does good work. However, there's reason
not to sign up for their junk call preference service.
For whatever reason, I receive very few nuisance commercial calls, perhaps
one a month. But I often (~ once a week) receive unsolicited calls which
are marketing surveys, political opinion surveys, followups to mailings
by 501(c) non-profits I support, etc. The input I provide to these surveys
is input into the national decisionmaking process which I would have no other
opportunity to send. The last thing I want is to lock myself out of the Gallup
polls while my reactionary neighbors remain represented! The nonprofit
reminders are almost always a waste of a minute or two, but sometimes they
prompt me to write the letter (or check) I've been procrastinating. And when I registered Green, the two calls I got from the Democratic National Committee
(to "talk me out of it") were entertainment I wouldn't have wanted to miss!
I will sign up with Private Citizen when its database and "agreement" make a
distinction between commercial and non-commercial callers, and between legit
market and opinion surveys and cold sales calls.
(The legit phone surveys I'm talking about are the type conducted by Gallup,
Consumer Mail Panel, and the focus group outfits. Sombody may do by phone
phony opinion surveys like the direct mail fundraisers sometimes use, but
