What has actually happened though is probably the biggest backfire in the history of Backfires. Many news outlets, including the Globe and Mail, have reported that those on the list – myself included – have actually had our names and numbers sold to scammers.
You see, it’s rather easy to get the list. All marketers have to do is register online and pay a small fee. When they register, as long as they know the format for a business number and the other information they ask, they are immediately accepted. There’s NO cross checking that takes place. No confirmation before the list is downloaded.
This means anyone, including those who aren’t Canadian – and can’t be processed since this is a Canadian law, that applies to Canadians – can get the list and use it to call people.
Which is, unfortuntely, exactly what’s taking place. If you take a look in the hundred or so comments you see with the article, you’ll notice that most of these calls are ones we all get, the fog-horn cruise and those with call-display numbers of 1234567890.
The problem? It’s obvious the CRTC didn’t put any checks and balances in place to stop this kind of thing from happening. Again, if you read through the comments, you’ll notice several people mention things like seed numbers, data checks and data cleansing – without releasing the information.
This last idea is really the way things should have been handled in the first place. It’s the way respectable email marketing is run, so there’s no excuse as to why it couldn’t work here.
The way it works is that (after all the non-disclosure agreements are signed), the mareketer sends their list to the CRTC, who then ‘scrubs’ it against their Do Not Call list and sends back the ‘cleaned’ file. Now, this is the most rudimentary way of doing this. Technology has advanced so much that many of the email companies (and some major computer companies with giant lists) allow online data scrubbing to occur in a secure environment where humans don’t actually touch/see the data.
GASP what a concept! If the CRTC had done their homework, or talked with vendors who offer this service, they would see how easily this could be done and is currently done here and in the U.S., where it’s the law to have an email DNC and for suppressions to take place when renting lists.
Now Canadians who were told to register in good faith for this list, have no choice but to continue suffering the fate of illegimate marketers phoning them whenever they please.
Photo Credit: Jazza Stock.Xchng
Rebecca Atkinson (Muller) is a freelance web marketing/analytics consultant with more than seven years of direct experience helping businesses create and implement online marketing and communications strategies. Her clients come from all industries including finance, technology and not-for-profit. She specializes in helping her clients determine how to improve their advertising programs, focusing on visitor behaviour – beyond the inital click-through. Full bio available