Beware scam artists offering “pre-registration” for a fee–that doesn’t buy you anything. The FTC won’t release the new service’s Web address or phone number until the very day it starts, so there’s no such thing as registering in advance. You’ll have plenty of time before the first list is compiled in September.
Don’t get your quiet-dinner hopes up too high. This will cut down on the calls, but the FTC can’t touch banks, airlines or insurance companies (which are regulated by the Federal Communications Commission), or calls from charities and survey takers (which are not subject to the same rules as telemarketers). We’ll just have to put them on hold ourselves.
