Do-not-call list comes to Canada

But how effective will it be?

Starting Tuesday, Canadians will be able to register their phone numbers on a national do-not-call list, but they may find telemarketing calls replaced by junk mail and spam.

Two polls suggest the do-not-call list will be a tremendous success, with participation rates ranging from 64 per cent, according to a poll conducted for the Marketing Research and Intelligence Association, to 72 per cent, in a poll conducted for PitneyBowes Canada.

However, the do-not-call list won't make as much of a dent as some Canadians are hoping, since much telemarketing is done by companies that are exempt from the ban, meaning they can continue to call someone who has registered on the DNC list.

The telemarketing exemption list includes:

• Registered charities seeking donations.
• Newspapers looking for subscriptions.
• Political parties and their candidates.
• Companies that have an existing business relationship with a consumer within the previous 18 months.
• Organizations directing calls and faxes to businesses.

If you're cable customer, for instance, you may find yourself fielding the occasional call from your cable company about a cellphone. It's the same for your bank, which may call to sell insurance or credit cards. Or if you've given to a registered charity in the past year, you may get calls for other upcoming charity events.

From here. The thing is, it might not be a good thing:

The face of marketing is set to change, said Chopra. When the U.S. do-not-call registry came into effect, 30 per cent of nearly $2 billion spent on telemarketing moved into direct mailing and traditional media advertising.

In other words, if they can't phone you, they'll kill more trees to reach you. Not to mention, we might all be looking for telemarketing jobs in the near future, judging from the way the economy is going.