Rings of Privacy: Unsolicited Telephone Calls and the Right of Privacy
![handle is hein.journals/yjor4 and id is 105 raw text is: Rings of Privacy: Unsolicited Telephone
Calls and the Right of Privacy
Mark S. Nadelt
So that is the telephone. It rings and you run. This early description
of the telephone by the artist Degas1 still rings true today. So strong is
this Pavlovian response that, reportedly, a person standing on a building
ledge, ready to jump to his death, returned to his building to answer his
telephone.2 As one court has remarked, A ringing telephone is an imper-
ative which, in the minds of many, must be obeyed with a prompt
answer.'s
This compelling quality has made the telephone a desirable medium for
disseminating information.4 The device has spawned a rapidly growing
billion dollar industry which includes telemarketing,5 phone surveying,
and soliciting by phone. Yet, consumer reactions to unsolicited telephone
calls vary. A survey conducted for Pacific Telephone indicated that many
recipients did not mind survey, solicitation, or sales calls. Others,
t Adjunct Assistant Professor, Benjamin Cardozo Law School and New York Law School;
Research Associate, Columbia University Center for Telecommunications and Information Studies;
B.A. 1978, Amherst College; J.D. 1981, Harvard Law School. The author would like to thank Eileen
Benner, Jonina Duker, Irene Greene, Sheila Karr, Jeff Masoner, Morey McDaniel, Eugene Nadel,
Carl Oppedahl, Gordon Persinger, Eric Rolseth, and Fred Tregaskis for their particularly useful
comments on earlier drafts of this piece.
1. Fadiman, Please Tap My Line, I Like It!, HOLIDAY, July 1964, at 17, quoted in Note,
Unwanted Telephone Calls-A Legal Remedy?, 1967 UrAH L. REV. 379, 380 n.4.
2. M. BRENTON, THE PRIVACY INVADERS 176 (1964).
3. People v. Weeks, 591 P.2d 91, 96 (Colo. 1979).
4. See, e.g., Dreyfuss, Reach Out and Sell Something, FORTUNE, Nov. 26, 1984, at 127; Schnei-
der, Telemarketing As A Promotional Tool-Its Effects and Side Effects, 2 J. CONSUMER MKTG. 29
(Winter 1985).
5. See sources cited supra note 4. Telemarketing, selling by phone, is already replacing door-to-
door sales and direct mail for many tasks. Many businesses using telemarketing recognize that alter-
native advertising media [are] much less effective than telephone solicitation. Unsolicited Telephone
Calls, 77 F.C.C.2d 1023, 1027 (1980). See also Planned Parenthood League v. Attorney Gen., 391
Mass. 709, 715, 464 N.E.2d 55, 59 (1984) (The parties agree that telephone solicitation is a much
more effective way of procuring contributions than direct mail requests). This is due, in part, to the
increasing availability and decreasing cost of automatic dialer recorded message players (ADRMPs).
ADRMPs sell for as little as $500 and can complete as many as 100 calls an hour. Smith, Dial 'N'
for Nuisance, Wall St. J., Feb. 24, 1986, at 42D, col. 1.
6. The Field Research Report, commissioned by Pacific Telephone Company, reported that 0.1%
of the respondents liked receiving calls made by sales people and 0.2% liked calls soliciting money
for charitable purposes. 1.7% reported favorable feelings with respect to calls asking for their vote or
support for a political candidate, and 3.7% liked calls made by interviewers in authentic public opin-
ion surveys. In addition, for categories of sales, charitable solicitations, political solicitations, and opin-
ion polls, 9.1%, 27.1%, 43.4%, and 50.2%, respectively, answered that they did not mind receiving
Copyright © 1986 by the Yale Journal on Regulation.](ViewImageLocal?handle=hein.journals/yjor4&div=9&collection=&method=preview&ext=.png&size=3)
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Rings of Privacy: Unsolicited Telephone Calls and the Right of Privacy
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