Canada’s Do Not Call Registry

Those annoying telemarketing calls are almost a thing of the past! Canada has adopted a Do Not Call registry so that you can tell those companies that you don’t appreciate recieving random calls everyday!

The main registry
You can add your number to the registry at the Canadian Government National Do Not Call List website. It only takes a minute or so, but it will take up to 31 days for it to take effect.

The exceptions
It has some important exceptions though. First, any company you have done business with in the past 18 months are allowed to contact you. There’s not a lot you can do about those.

The other major exceptions are that Canadian Registered Charities, political parties, or candidates are still allowed to solicit donations, and Newspapers may call you to sell a subscription. (I get the charity angle, but why the exemption for newspapers?)

Michael Geist has found the solution here though. These organizations do not have to honour the national registry, but they do have to remove your name if you specifically ask them to do so. He’s created iOptOut which allows you to put your name in once, and mass mail all of the major organizations that are exempt from the national list in one go!

Combine these two sites, and you should be annoyance free!