By Jaime Woo

In two months, the Do Not Call List will launch across Canada to help prevent telemarketers from spamming your phones. Signing up is simple—you can do it online or by phone—and companies that don’t abide will face a serious fine. The service will be operated by Bell Canada, which won a five-year contract earlier this year.
Before you leap for joy, know that there is a long list of companies that will be exempt from the DNCL. Any company that you do business with, such as Bell Canada, can still call you—the DNCL doesn’t differentiate customer service calls from marketing calls—as can registered charities, political parties, newspapers seeking subscriptions, and survey companies. (It’s like a who’s who of the species Dinner Interruptus.) We’re especially miffed that charities can still call, since most of the calls go like this:
CHARITY: Hello, is Mrs. Jones there?
US: She’s unavailable, may I ask…
CHARITY: Never mind. Local charity. We’ll call back.
CLICK!
A bad sign is that the government is still working out full details clarifying the rules of the DNCL, presumably finishing before the official September 30 launch. A great supplement until then is Michael Geist’s iOptOut, now in beta. iOptOut is a service that allows individuals to create a personalized list of companies that iOptOut will send stop and desist messages to. (iOptOut still suggests signing up for the DNCL in September to cover all grounds, though.) The service is completely free and worth a look. You may also want to join the Red Dot Campaign, now that businesses may switch to mail instead of phone calls.
Photo by Evidence from the Torontoist Flickr Pool.