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nephihaha
There is a grey area here of calls from businesses which the customer is signed up to, or has had previous dealings with. Many will be unsolicited but not all will be.

Many of these calls are coming out of the Third World countries which are barely regulated in this regard, so good luck with enforcing it.

lifestyleguru
What's the status of discounts granted in exchange for marketing consent? Because that's how they bait many older consumers into receiving these calls.
jordiburgos
It happened in Spain months ago. Then the "marketers" start calling from international phone numbers.
wolvoleo
AHH is that why I get so many international calls?

Also the energy company scammers in Spain are still going strong. Even on local numbers.

mkj
Australia banned telemarketing a while ago, it worked pretty well. The only spam phone calls left are 100% illegal scammers.

https://www.acma.gov.au/telemarketing-and-e-marketing they give out million+ dollar fines which sort things out. Just being a customer doesn't allow them to send marketing, you have to opt in.

erelong
what does HN think are the better alternatives to cold contact?

businesses obviously keep doing unsolicited telemarketing calls because it works to some extent

LorenPechtel
Most unsolicited telemarketing is inefficient--and that means a high cost of making the sale, which means whatever they are offering is either too expensive, too low quality, or an outright scam.
bobro
Annoying tons of people so some small percent buys your stuff is a shitty thing to do. Their winning more than they lose from being shitty isn't something we have to offer an alternative to.
mdrzn
You can ban these practices as much as you want, but what we really need is ENFORCING. I have to be able to report a phone number that called me, and have them either fined or blocked at the national level for spam.
ptek
Make c5 great again <3
ogou
This could be dealt with in the U.S. with simple enforcement, but would also limit political parties soliciting by phone and that is my conspiracy theory for why it isn't enforced. It is trivial to find the VoIP providers that are providing the numbers to these telemarketing companies. NANPA (North American Numbering Plan Administrator) has a tool for finding them. https://nanpa.com/sites/default/files/2025-03/InstructionsFo...
wolvoleo
They should do the same here in Spain and not just for consumers but B2B as well.

I get several sales people bugging me on email and LinkedIn per day. Of course I block them all but it just sickens me.