It ain’t pretty, but that was exactly the point of my post- that even on the DNC list you can still get calls you’ll probably think of as no different from telemarketing. That’s all I came here to say, so I won’t be back here unless the OP asks for something else relevant to how to avoid being disturbed by the phone (i.e. how to get DNC-exempt callers to stop calling).
In hindsight that might be more IMHO or MPSIMS than GQ, though I’m sure it could be proved (but it would take some specialized lawyer or other). It can be observed by working in numerous call centers for several years, running into people one knows from previous jobs on the floor all the time and seeing the bosses and supervisors stay in place the whole time. It probably doesn’t hold up on paper due to shady corporate shit, but my point is that the tiny legal differences between the two get blown into huge gulfs at the lowest level. When you’re an “interviewer” (phone surveryor) you hate telemarketers, when you’re a telemarketer you envy surveyors. And then there’s inbound call centers…
Anyway, I probably should have said they differ starkly in when, how, how often etc they’ll call you, and made it clear that I don’t know or care whether they’re legally split aside from the DNC list exception. That was my fault.
Market research companies typically are (again, on paper) independent contracting deals. They sell the service of providing completed surveys to companies. The customer of the market research company provides the survey, tells the research company who they want it from (people with children under 6 only, men only, retirees only, residents of this state or that etc etc) and the phone slaves get on it. So they do have a client in mind, but the same companies doing market research also handle the political polls that crop up before every election- likely the reason why they’re exempt from the DNC list.
I would presume a telemarketing company isn’t prohibited from using a survey company, but I’d also think the chance they’ll have a reason to is pretty slim.
I’ve called nearly every bit of the U.S., two Canadian provinces and part of Australia doing surveys and never once had to ask that question.
I don’t know where you’re getting those calls from (phone peasants are instructed to say we’re calling from whatever city the headquarters is in, not from the one we’re sitting in, so you might never know without some digging around either) but I’d venture to say they aren’t from this continent.
