More telemarketing facts

It costs up to $3 per name to get a list of the nation’s top executives, including title and address.

On average, for every $1000 you make, your name is sold once a year.

The number of junk phone calls surpassed 87 billion last year. At least 2 billion junk faxes were spit out last year. And the average consumer will get 572 pieces of junk mail this year.

For the full story, read here.

Scary, yes, but to me this suggests possible technological solutions to the problems (email spam is harder to solve, since it costs less to send). This year marketers will spend $193 billion on soliciting you, ideally this is money they would like to save.

I doubt if legislation is the sole or main answer. Since 2002, 1500 privacy bills in fifteen states have been introduced. A California consumer group filed $2.2 trillion of class action suits against a single junk faxer. When you see signs of the problem abating, send me a junk fax and let me know.