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From: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu (TELECOM Moderator)
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
Subject: House Approves Restrictions on Fax, Phone Junk Mail
Message-ID: <10307@accuvax.nwu.edu>
Date: 1 Aug 90 06:01:22 GMT
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X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 10, Issue 534, Message 1 of 12


The United States House of Representatives approved a bill Monday,
July 30 that would allow phone subscribers to keep incoming junk faxes
and automated phone sales calls off their lines.

The legislation, approved by a voice vote, would authorize the Federal
Communications Commission to set up a national registry of telephone
subscribers who object to unsolicited sales messages delivered orally
by a computer, or in printed form by a fax machine. 

The FCC would also establish penalties for advertisers who call people
on the list. 

Solicitations by charitable, political and religious organizations
would be exempt from the ban.
 
Telephone subscribers, either private individuals or businesses, could
specify they do not wish to receive advertising by facsimile machines
or automatically dialed, prerecorded telephone solicitations.

The legislation was crafted in cooperation with the Federal
Communications Commission, various telepone companies, and
representatives of the direct marketing industry, said Rep. Edward J.
Markey (D-Mass), one of the sponsors of the bill. The Senate must
still approve the bill, and the Senate version may make some changes.

The new law, if passed, will *NOT* prohibit live sales calls, but only
the automated kind, along with fax calls. The assumption is that the
called party can instruct an actual, live human-being sales person to
terminate the call and not call in the future.


Patrick Townson