• by Masha Geller , July 1, 2003

Just how annoyed do people get when telemarketers call during dinner? Donotcall.gov recorded one of the fastest increases ever for a website, jumping nearly 26,000 percent to more than 3.4 million unique visitors at work on June 27, according to Nielsen//NetRatings. Launched on Friday, June 27, the site allows consumers to register their telephone numbers in a national database to help limit telemarketing solicitations.

The site drew millions of surfers at home as well. Daily overnight analysis shows the site recorded more than 3.1 million unique visitors at home. The site peaked on its first official day and continued its strong performance during the weekend garnering 2.1 million and 2.9 million at home surfers on Saturday the 28th and Sunday the 29th, respectively.

"The one day growth in site traffic for Donotcall.gov was unprecedented," said Patrick Thomas, senior Internet analyst at Nielsen//NetRatings. "The Internet makes this streamlined process a possibility, allowing the government to easily collect the information of those opting in, and relay that to telemarketing companies. This registry gives the power back to the consumer."

What's interesting about all this is that last week, NetFrameworks, Inc., a security products and consulting services firm, discovered that leading spam blocking systems, including a top processor of email worldwide, Yahoo!, are blocking email confirmations from the Federal Do Not Call Registry. "This highlights how difficult it is to control the flow of unsolicited communications of any kind, be it phone or email," stated Eric Greenberg, NetFrameworks CTO and co-founder. "Current unsolicited communications detection and assurance mechanisms are based on a set of arbitrarily defined rules. The people that control the rules, by definition, often know very little about what truly constitutes spam or unwanted solicitations."