But giving consumers the right to be compensated may also benefit some telemarketers. Consumers having the option of choosing an intermediate price will receive fewer calls, which will be more tailored to their interests and will be compensated for those calls they do receive. Telemarketing firms facing higher costs of communication are likely to better screen potential contacts to find consumers who are more likely to be interested in their solicitation. Under this rule, consumers are presumptively made better off by a regime that gives them greater freedom. Such a "name your own price" mechanism could be easily implemented by crediting consumers' phone bills (a method analogous to the current debits to bill from 1-900 calls). A better solution is to allow individual consumers to choose the price per minute they would like to receive as compensation for listening to telemarketing calls. Current regulatory responses that give consumers the all-or-nothing option of registering on the internet to block all unsolicited telemarketing calls are needlessly both over- and under-inclusive. Telemarketers don't bear the full costs of their marketing because they do not compensate recipients for the hassle of, say, being interrupted during dinner. Unsolicited solicitations in the form of telemarketing calls, email spam and junk mail impose in aggregate a substantial negative externality on society.
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