The Telephone Compliance Council (TCC), which represents the interests of businesses that rely on tele-canvassing, has expressed concerns that new rules could result in a ban on telephone marketing. Under the current draft of the EU’s ePrivacy Directive, the TCC believe companies will need consent to call members of the public, this includes contacting customers about product and contract expiry dates, upgrades, cross-selling and service based reminders.
Within the draft legislation there is a clause which could allow governments to opt-out of outbound calling regulation, and the TCC is pushing for the UK government to do so.
Nick Rines, spokesperson for the TCC, said: “It is important that we understand the full implications of opt in consent regulation, and what the fall-out will be, including the freedom to make calls about upgrades, cross selling, and new prospect calling. There is a lot of concern, particularly among marketing professionals and consumer facing businesses that having to build and maintain a consent database is unfeasible. It would mean that overnight the successful business models of tens of thousands of companies would become untenable.
“This attempt to stop nuisance calls will not solve current problems. The TCC fully supports robust regulation that protects the public from rogue or nuisance callers, but it believes implementing opt in consent rules, which in effect would be a ban on currently legally compliant outbound calling, would leave the field wide open to those pirate callers that would merely expand their activity as they continue to flaunt current or future legislation. The TCC supports the ICO in firmer prosecution of those that transgress the current laws.”
Information taken from an article published on http://www.proinstaller.co.uk/