Are you tired of telemarketeers invading your home, harassing you to buy some service or a product? Do you feel strongly that your right to privacy is being violated by these calls? If the answers to these questions is ‘yes’, then it’s time you demanded a law to protect consumers from such calls.

In the US, for example, the “No Call” law prohibits companies from calling those whose telephone numbers are on the “Do not call” list. Those who violate the law and call these numbers end up paying huge civil penalties. Besides the state governments which have passed the “No Call” law, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), the consumer protection agency there, has also created a “National Do Not Call Registry”.

The US law does not completely eliminate telemarketing, but it does considerably reduce the irritant. Those who do not wish to receive telemarketing calls can register their telephone numbers — both landlines and cell- phones — with the national registry as well as the state registry. The registry only accepts personal phone numbers. Business-to-business numbers are outside the registry. Companies have to buy once in a quarter the list of these telephone numbers and they are forbidden from calling these numbers to sell goods or services. The law, however, does not prevent calls from or on behalf of political organisations, charities and from companies with whom you have an existing business relationship. Those doing telephone surveys are also permitted to call these numbers. However, if a telemarketeer uses a telephone survey as an excuse to push a product or a service, then he is violating the law.

If a telemarketeer calls a number which is in the “No Call” registry, he can be hauled up for violation. In Pennsylvania, for example, the penalty for such a violation can go up to $1000 and if the person contacted is 60 years of age or more, then it’s $3000. In fact in what is said to be the first lawsuit filed under the “Do Not Call” law, the office of the attorney general in California, obtained an order in June this year against a company called American Home Craft. The company and its director were asked to pay $100,000: $45,000 in civil penalties, $30,000 towards costs of investigating and prosecuting the case and $25,000 to the California residents who lodged the complaint about receiving the calls.

So start discussing the need for such a law with your members of Parliament. You could write to the Union ministry of consumer affairs and the communication ministry, demanding such a law.