12.5+ Million Join Do-Not-Call, Most of Them Online: FTC

Through midday July 1, 12.5 million telephone numbers were logged onto the new federal do-not-call registry that will instruct telemarketers not to call those numbers, with 88 percent of them being logged in on the Internet, the Federal Trade Commission announced late in the day. 

It's not that there haven't been a few little problems since the registry began taking numbers June 27. Aside from Yahoo's well-enough publicized Spam Guard gaffe, in which that program blocked the do-not-call's return confirmation e-mails until Yahoo corrected the glitch, the FTC said other unspecified glitches had occurred, enough to prompt the agency to pass out some tips for making registration easier. 

If you register online, the FTC says, you have to receive an e-mail from [email protected] and click the link provided (or, cut and paste, as above, as the case may be) to complete the registration.

They're advising consumers using some older Web browsers who can't click on the confirmation link in the return confirmation e-mails to use the cut and paste functions to put the entire link into the "address" line on their Web browser. 

The FTC also advises customers who click on the e-mail's confirmation link but get a page saying "registration incomplete" to return to the e-mail message and maximize it to full-screen viewing and then click on the link. And if that doesn't work, go to the cut-and-paste for the Web browser's address line.

Spam fighters, of course, are watching the success of the do-not-call registry for stopping telemarketing calls to see if a similar program can't be developed to block spam.

If you want to be included on the do-not-call registry and you're not certain you registered fully, you can verify your registration at donotcall.gov. If you haven't registered yet, you can go there to register, or you can call 1 (888) 382-1222.