麻豆传媒映画

Two in five (40%) of the French public say they receive an unwanted marketing telephone call at least once a week.

According to consumer association UFC-Que Choisir - - the major difference between marketing calls, and marketing through text messages and email, is that the latter two require explicit 鈥渙pt-in鈥� consent, whereas calling does not.

In fact, in France, consumers are automatically assumed to have given consent to cold calling, unless they explicitly 鈥渙pt out鈥�.

A list already exists to allow people to do this - named 鈥渢he Bloctel list鈥� - but four years after its introduction, it has been deemed to have made very little difference to the number of cold calls received.

In response, UFC-Que Choisir is calling for an outright ban on this kind of marketing, which it calls a 鈥減lague鈥�, 鈥渃ommercial harassment鈥� and 鈥減articularly intrusive鈥�.

Originally, the associations had aimed to gather 50,000 signatures for the petition. But this level was reached within 24 hours, with the total standing at more than 262,000 at the time of writing. Now, the association is aiming to reach 300,000 signatures.

The company highlights that Germany and the United Kingdom had previously attempted to address the problem of cold calling through a similar 鈥淏loctel-style鈥� list, which had similarly proven ineffective.

These countries had therefore simply extended their 鈥渙pt-in鈥� laws to cover phone calls, as well as emails and texts - UFC-Choisir said - meaning that someone must explicitly consent to be called, rather than needing to explicitly withdraw consent.

On its website, UFC-Choisir said: 鈥淭he sectors that use [telephone cold calling] are also those that cause the most consumer problems and disputes (over house projects, energy renovation, energy suppliers, and insurance).鈥�