from the blocklist-the-blacklist-alliance dept.
Robocall Legal Advocate Leaks Customer Data:
The Blacklist Alliance provides technologies and services to marketing firms concerned about lawsuits under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA), a 1991 law that restricts the making of telemarketing calls through the use of automatic telephone dialing systems and artificial or prerecorded voice messages. The TCPA prohibits contact with consumers — even via text messages — unless the company has "prior express consent" to contact the consumer.
With statutory damages of $500 to $1,500 per call, the TCPA has prompted a flood of lawsuits over the years.
[...] Enter The Blacklist Alliance, which promises to help marketers avoid TCPA legal snares set by "professional plaintiffs and class action attorneys seeking to cash in on the TCPA."
[...] Lawyers representing TCPA claimants typically redact their clients' personal information from legal filings to protect them from retaliation and to keep their contact information private. The Blacklist Alliance researches TCPA cases to uncover the phone numbers of plaintiffs and sells this data in the form of list-scrubbing services to telemarketers.
[...] Unfortunately for the Blacklist paying customers and for people represented by attorneys filing TCPA lawsuits, the Blacklist's own Web site until late last week leaked reams of data to anyone with a Web browser. Thousands of documents, emails, spreadsheets, images and the names tied to countless mobile phone numbers all could be viewed or downloaded without authentication from the domain theblacklist.click.
The directory also included all 388 Blacklist customer API keys, as well as each customer's phone number, employer, username and password (scrambled with the relatively weak MD5 password hashing algorithm).
(Score: 2, Funny) by fustakrakich on Saturday August 08 2020, @07:02AM
I can damn near sympathize...
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Opportunist on Saturday August 08 2020, @07:46AM (3 children)
There is a list of "poisonous" customers that robocallers avoid like the plague?
How does one become part of the poison? If there's ever been a list a robocalling asshole has that you WANT to be on, it's that one.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 08 2020, @10:34AM (1 child)
Hmmm... I haven't received a telemarketing call since Windows (India) called me around 10 years ago and told me my PC had a virus. I told them they called my car phone and to call back on my landline. I gave them the number to the W.H. switchboard and to ask for Bama. Never got another call.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 08 2020, @10:40AM
BTW, I already had a list of numbers ready for future telemarketers. The AIDS hotline, 3-letter agencies, Gay & Lesbian center, E.F.'S phone number, etc.
(Score: 2) by toddestan on Monday August 10 2020, @02:29AM
I would guess that successfully suing a telemarketer that's breaking the rules would get oneself on a list like that.
The problem is most telemarketers are overseas scammers and there's really no effective way to sue them, or collect from them for that matter. But if you get someone like a debt collector calling you, many of which like to skirt around the rules, you might be able to successfully sue them and win.
(Score: 1, Redundant) by darkfeline on Saturday August 08 2020, @09:25AM
The point of the TCPA is to stop companies from calling people without explicit consent, right?
So presumably, telemarketers have a list of people who have given consent to be called, so there would be no need to scrub the lists.
Unless the telemarketers are still making lists of people who have not given consent, and are scrubbing those who have sued before.
It sounds like the best way to resolve the situation is for consumers to get more comfortable suing back, such that using non-consent lists becomes too risky.
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