be placed on a company's do  not call list terminates the business relationship between the 

company and that customer for the purpose of any future solicitation. 

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The FTC should respect Congress' judgment that registration on a nationwide 

telemarketing suppression list should not prevent consumers from receiving calls from 

companies with whom they formed ongoing business relationships.  Such action will not 

undermine the principle of consumer choice or the Commission's privacy objectives, because, 

pursuant to both the existing TSR and the TCPA, consumers will continue to be able to prevent 

calls from even those parties with whom they have voluntarily chosen to do business by making 

a company specific do not call request.  

3. 

Calls to Existing Customers Do Not Threaten Privacy Interests that 

the Telemarketing Act Was Intended to Protect.    

According to the Commission, the proposed national do  not call requirements are 

designed to fulfill its mandate under the Telemarketing Act to  prohibit telemarketers from 

undertaking a `pattern of unsolicited telephone calls which the reasonable consumer would 

consider coercive or abusive of such consumer's right to privacy.' 

41

  Phone calls from 

businesses to their existing customers are not inherently  coercive or abusive of a consumer's 

right of privacy  and, therefore, they are beyond the scope of the Telemarketing Act's privacy 

mandate.   

After conducting a lengthy rulemaking proceeding pursuant to the TCPA, the FCC 

 conclude[d], based upon the comments received and the legislative history, that a solicitation to 

someone with whom a prior business relationship exists does not adversely affect subscriber 

40

Id.

41

NPRM

, 67 Fed. Reg. 4492, 4518. 

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