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From: das@cs.ucla.edu (David A Smallberg)
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
Subject: Re: Mercury Marketing Again
Message-ID: <13538@accuvax.nwu.edu>
Date: 14 Oct 90 01:49:30 GMT
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X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 10, Issue 736, Message 6 of 9


In article <13495@accuvax.nwu.edu> portal!cup.portal.com!
John_David_Galt writes:

>I have also gotten some annoying sales calls from the Mercury, though
>not lately.  At least they seem to obey the law against having a
>computer initiate the call, without a human being talking to you
>first. ...

I understood this to be California law, also, but I found no reference
to it at the UCLA Law Library.  Any Californian have the section
number?  In any event, does the law cover non-sales, informational
messages?  Our local high school has a computer that apparently calls
all the parents of students every Saturday afternoon and plays a
recording of school-related information about the upcoming week.  (Of
course, the first part of the message talks through answering
machines' outgoing messages.)  Is this legal in California?

While perusing the code books, I did spot the law that explicitly
makes it illegal in California to use the toll-avoidance signalling
methods discussed in this forum last month (You know, "I'd to make a
collect call for <code-name>" that means "Hey, mom!  Call me at my
dorm room right now.")


David Smallberg, das@cs.ucla.edu, ...!{uunet,ucbvax,rutgers}!cs.ucla.edu!das


[Moderator's Note: The government never has to follow the rules the
rest of us have to follow, didn't you know that?    PAT]