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I agree with Lena.
I think all of us consumers agree that we don't want any spam emails at all and no soliciting telephone calls at all.
Congress, in its infiite wisdom and infinite lobbying, finally put some limits on telemarketing. They do not go as far as we consumers want, and more restrictions need to be applied. The telemarketers have a powerful lobby and fight against this stuff. I think what Lena is suggesting a compromise that could get through Congress.
In response to other posts, telemarketers representing charities, past business relationships, and political issues ARE permitted to call just as before and you can't stop them; they're exempt from regulation. Even if you told candidate Smith not to call you, in the next election candidate Jones will call you.
I don't understand at all why there's no "no-spam" law passed. I don't know who represents the spamming interests and would think those supporting no-spam would be quite vocal and organized. I think one problem is the openness of the Internet where it is very hard to trace where spam truly comes from, it apparently is very easy for spammers to forge their origin points or actually hijack someone else's computer to do their duty work. To me, that kind of thing should be a serious felony offense. I understand another problem is that much spam originates overseas (along with a lot of illegal p*rn).
I don't understand Internet message addressing, but it seems to me any initiated message should have a secured sender's address address. There should be some technical way that something like that is reasonably tamper proof so it works reliably. Such an address would cut down "phising" and other fraudulent and abusive activity now going on.
Some people get very upset with that idea because they want "anonimity". Fine. Let's set up a completely separate Internet that is anonymous, without verifiable addresses (like now). People who want to interchange on that are free to do so, with all that entails.
For those of us who take our Internet use a little more seriously, we should have a separate secured system where only messages and screens from properly authenticated sites are permitted. You would have to use (intentionally) two different browsers, one for the garbage, one for serious stuff.
I don't understand why some people just love "mob rule". Civilization grew out of the development of rules for us to live by--basic manners and organization. It's how we get anything done in society. Random folk talk is fine for a bar.