Do-Not-Call (DNC) Registries

A do-not-call (DNC) registry is a listing of people who have requested that they not receive any telephone calls from telemarketers on their residential telephone number(s). In the United States, these registries are maintained by the federal government and by government agencies in the majority of states. Survey research organizations are not prohibited from calling the numbers on the DNC registries, but many citizens fail to understand this, which causes them to be less willing to agree to participate when sampled for a telephone survey.

The birth of DNC registries has its roots firmly in the groundswell of public reaction in the United States to certain practices of the telemarketing industry that began in the 1980s and escalated considerably until 2003, when the national registry was ...