The American Teleservices Association is an organizational body that represents “call centers, trainers, consultants, and equipment suppliers that initiate, facilitate, and generate telephone, Internet, and email sales, service, and support” — telemarketers, spammers and their technical providers.

What do they really do? So far as I can tell, they’re a lobby group that pushes and prods (and probably funds) Capitol Hill to stay the hell away.

Understandably, they don’t like the idea of a national Do-Not-Call registry. In fact, they’re so darned upset they’re going to sue. I’ll admit that the registry will severely impact the telemarketing industry on the whole, but self-regulation clearly doesn’t work. Good riddance!

With something like ~25 million people subscribed in the last month, it’s no wonder they’re concerned. According to their own press release, the suit was filed when the list was less than 17 million subscribers.

This kind of bull is tough to choke down: “Implementation of a national do-not-call list will cost the U.S. economy up to two million jobs in an industry that produces over 660 billion dollars of sales per year.” They must be getting these numbers from the same pollsters that claim people enjoy receiving unsolicited calls. It’s laughable that they have to illustrate the difference between telemarketers and telephone fraud on their website.

Cross your fingers that Washington will have the stomach to deal with barrage of lawsuits to sure to come. I wish Canada would get on-board with something similar!