A petition for the ban on door-to-door marketing was put online on Monday by several consumer protection associations, calling on the public authorities to ban this practice, which is described as "intrusive" and "unwanted by consumers".
"The resurgence of telephone canvassing (...) requires firm action from the public authorities to put an end to toxic practices", denounce in a joint press release ADEIC, AFOC, ALLDC, CSF, CNAFAL, CLCV, Rural Families, UFC-Que Choisir and UNAF.
Nearly 50,000 signatures on the petition
This initiative comes at a time when the National Assembly is preparing to discuss on January 30, at second reading, a bill on this issue. "However, as it stands, the text suffers cruelly from ambition and even risks worsening the situation, hence our call for the mobilization of consumers, the first victims of real commercial harassment", alarm the associations .
"The sectors which resort most to canvassing are those which concentrate consumer disputes with amounts which can be very significant", denounce these associations, which aim to reach 50,000 signatures for the petition. In France, at present, everyone can be solicited, unless they have entered their number in the Bloctel file, a service set up in mid-2016 which makes it possible to no longer be disturbed by unwanted calls. Some 3.7 million consumers and 700 companies had subscribed to the Bloctel device in 2018.
The Bloctel device deemed "ineffective"
Telephone canvassing was not, however, “limited by Bloctel. Four years after its implementation, the system is proving ineffective due to far too extensive exemptions and insufficiently dissuasive sanctions ”, continue the associations. With regard to the text to be discussed soon at the Meeting, it "endorses the logic of Bloctel's right of opposition (opt-out), the ineffectiveness of which is notoriously noted by consumers", underline the associations.
The "opt-out" is when the recipient of an advertisement has not objected: if he did not say "no", it is "yes", recalls on his website the National Commission for Data Protection (Cnil). But in addition, the text "widens the possibilities of derogation from the prohibition of telephone canvassing for people registered on Bloctel", still tan associations. In fact, according to them, "all the companies with which the consumer registered with Bloctel has, or had, a contractual relationship could solicit it:" contract one day, always solicited "! ", Protested associations which call on parliamentarians to" purely and simply ban this practice ".
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