Telemarketers have ruined the phone network for me. I haven't answered an unknown call for the past 10 years, which sometimes means I miss important ones. 99.9% of all calls are an attempt to get money, and the 0.1% that's a dentist appointment, a friend that changed numbers or whatever become collateral damage.
A ban is the right idea but I wonder how they can handle it, logistically. I think there needs to be a technical solution.
A national "whitelist", where hospitals, doctors, utility companies and such can register to get their numbers whitelisted perhaps, combined with a setting on phones that block any non-whitelist number.
Each country could maintain their own whitelists, and corrupt nations selling whitelist status to scammers would get blocked in any other country at least.
At the other side of the spectrum (they are mostly annoying, I agree) how do you keep promoting or selling your product if yiu cannot find your customers?
The whitelist managed by the government is not a bad idea.
I’ve been thinking how to turn the table so that you could allow only certain parties to reach you if you allowed them to (say you are waiting for a call from the auto repair shop).
I like the idea of a whitelist. But there needs to be a way for you to also manage that white list so that you can allow that repair shop to call you in the next few weeks.
In the last 2-3 years, my impression is that most french numbers receive daily unsolicited phone calls. In 2026 they even started sending scammy “missing delivery” text message with your real name printed on an attached MMS picture (on a parcel to deliver), making it even more real.
Related, there has been dozens of private data leaks in the last years in France
It's not about scams, it's about commercial telemarketing calls.
Scams have been heavily hit in January when the French regulator mandated the telcos to implement a complete block of spoofed phone numbers (it's not an actual hard block, but unauthenticated calls will be market as "private number" which are ignored by most people already).
There will always be scammers who register an actual phone number to run their scams, but this rule will at least stop the constant phone harassment that made everyone unplug their landline phone.
This seems so much of a no-brainer to me due to scammy calls to elderly and pure time loss responding to calls it is interesting not much has been done about it in other countries. I guess the telemarketers have a good lobby.
How many door to door salesman do you encounter? Where do you live, if you can share?
I haven't seen one in decades, and even then it was usually some pamphlets or books to support a cause or the other.
On the phone (Italy), OTOH, I used to get daily scam call to buy "Amazon stocks" or change utility providers or install water filters. That seems to have massively faded out due to new regulations tho.
What other kind of infantilizing laws do you purpose? Perhaps they should also make it illegal for people to interact with you if you find unpleasant? Ban small talk at checkouts?
Spam is generally defined as "unwanted and/or unsolicited communication". Which I'm pretty sure an unsolicited sales call, from a genuine business, still is.
Are calls originating in France a major source of these unsolicited calls? According to the article, a lot of the calls are coming from Morocco, outside of their jurisdiction.
I'm in North America and most of the calls I get are using local numbers, often spoofed from (I suspect) South and South East Asia. Good luck enforcing Canadian or American law in literal slave camps on the China-Myanmar border.
So, this is specifically for telemarketing call, not scam call. In the context of telemarketing, it doesn't matter that the company call center is outsourced in other country. The company who contracted them are in France, trying to sell their business in France, they are responsible.
So if you get a telemarketing call from RandoCallCenterCo S.A trying to sell you on BusinessABC Ltd., they have been contracted by said company to do so and BusinessABC Ltd. will be on the hook.
In my experience, GDPR works wonders here. After saying I do not wish my personal information to be processed and revoke any consents a few times I do not receive these calls anymore.
Great idea!
Telemarketers have ruined the phone network for me. I haven't answered an unknown call for the past 10 years, which sometimes means I miss important ones. 99.9% of all calls are an attempt to get money, and the 0.1% that's a dentist appointment, a friend that changed numbers or whatever become collateral damage.
A ban is the right idea but I wonder how they can handle it, logistically. I think there needs to be a technical solution.
A national "whitelist", where hospitals, doctors, utility companies and such can register to get their numbers whitelisted perhaps, combined with a setting on phones that block any non-whitelist number.
Each country could maintain their own whitelists, and corrupt nations selling whitelist status to scammers would get blocked in any other country at least.
At the other side of the spectrum (they are mostly annoying, I agree) how do you keep promoting or selling your product if yiu cannot find your customers?
The whitelist managed by the government is not a bad idea.
I’ve been thinking how to turn the table so that you could allow only certain parties to reach you if you allowed them to (say you are waiting for a call from the auto repair shop).
I like the idea of a whitelist. But there needs to be a way for you to also manage that white list so that you can allow that repair shop to call you in the next few weeks.
In the last 2-3 years, my impression is that most french numbers receive daily unsolicited phone calls. In 2026 they even started sending scammy “missing delivery” text message with your real name printed on an attached MMS picture (on a parcel to deliver), making it even more real.
Related, there has been dozens of private data leaks in the last years in France
The previous system never blocked scams because scammers didn't bother to check if your phone number was in the block-list before calling you.
That new law is not going to change the number of spam calls most people will get, as they're not from properly registered businesses.
It's not about scams, it's about commercial telemarketing calls.
Scams have been heavily hit in January when the French regulator mandated the telcos to implement a complete block of spoofed phone numbers (it's not an actual hard block, but unauthenticated calls will be market as "private number" which are ignored by most people already).
There will always be scammers who register an actual phone number to run their scams, but this rule will at least stop the constant phone harassment that made everyone unplug their landline phone.
Related: https://saracroche.org/
This seems so much of a no-brainer to me due to scammy calls to elderly and pure time loss responding to calls it is interesting not much has been done about it in other countries. I guess the telemarketers have a good lobby.
And what about those marketing people who approach you on the streets? Can we make that illegal too? And the people going from door to door?
How many door to door salesman do you encounter? Where do you live, if you can share?
I haven't seen one in decades, and even then it was usually some pamphlets or books to support a cause or the other.
On the phone (Italy), OTOH, I used to get daily scam call to buy "Amazon stocks" or change utility providers or install water filters. That seems to have massively faded out due to new regulations tho.
Jehovah's Witnesses, across Europe. Some other minor religious sects targeting elderly.
What other kind of infantilizing laws do you purpose? Perhaps they should also make it illegal for people to interact with you if you find unpleasant? Ban small talk at checkouts?
Ban "give a tip" and "donate to charity" in checkout and payment screens, yes please.
I suspect the data may be misleading. Unsolicited sales calls from genuine businesses are not the same as spam/scam calls
Spam is generally defined as "unwanted and/or unsolicited communication". Which I'm pretty sure an unsolicited sales call, from a genuine business, still is.
i don't want either, unless you're calling about a legitimate transaction i initiated, don't ever call me unsolicited
not the same as scam, but how is it not spam?
The problem is Phone numbers. No Band-Aids will fix them.
The service that was managing this before (Bloctel) was just hacked https://frenchbreaches.com/alertes/bloctel-mshxaq0ysyd27ca7f...
Are calls originating in France a major source of these unsolicited calls? According to the article, a lot of the calls are coming from Morocco, outside of their jurisdiction.
I'm in North America and most of the calls I get are using local numbers, often spoofed from (I suspect) South and South East Asia. Good luck enforcing Canadian or American law in literal slave camps on the China-Myanmar border.
So, this is specifically for telemarketing call, not scam call. In the context of telemarketing, it doesn't matter that the company call center is outsourced in other country. The company who contracted them are in France, trying to sell their business in France, they are responsible. So if you get a telemarketing call from RandoCallCenterCo S.A trying to sell you on BusinessABC Ltd., they have been contracted by said company to do so and BusinessABC Ltd. will be on the hook.
Is there a technical reason why phone numbers would be easier to spoof in North America than other places?
Anecdotally I’ve not heard as much about it being a problem in other places such as the UK.
Article is not clear. Does this law blocks B2B calls? If so then it can cause damage to the business.
"After a joint call by 11 consumer groups" - going to guess its B2C given "consumer groups".
In my experience, GDPR works wonders here. After saying I do not wish my personal information to be processed and revoke any consents a few times I do not receive these calls anymore.
Where is ‘here’? France?