Not content with his success in attracting tens of thousands of supporters to a Facebook group critical of the government's proposed copyright legislation, law professor Michael Geist has taken action on phone-calling spam as well, with a new site called iOptOut.ca. Although there is legislation that requires companies to remove your phone number from their calling lists if you request it, there are all kinds of companies and organizations that are exempt from those rules, including newspapers and phone companies.
In a nutshell, iOptOut.ca allows you to create an automated do-not-call list for any and all of these companies and organizations. When you add a new company, the site sends a request that you be removed, and the process of adding or removing names from the list is pretty simple.
As the introduction to the site says: "Regular readers of my work will know that I have been frustrated by Canada's do-not-call list, which contains far too many exceptions and has taken an embarrassingly long time to become operational. In response, today I am launching iOptOut, a website that will allow Canadians to opt-out of further phone calls (and emails) from dozens of organizations with a single click."
The site also includes a wiki, to allow anyone to suggest a new company or organization to add to the list. Nice job, Michael.
