In Belgium, that's not the case for phone calls. You can't email or fax someone without their prior permission, but you can call them, as long as they're not on the do-not-call-list.
Of course, that list is dead in the water. It has to be _bought_ by companies trying to call people and no effort is being done to make the existence of the list known to the public.
"Surprisingly", the board of the non-profit managing the list consists of representatives from call-centers, marketing associations and telco's.
(I had a major run-in with them once, because their previous website allowed adding phone numbers to the do-not-call-list without verification. So I tried adding all of Belgium's phone numbers with a script).
Of course, that list is dead in the water. It has to be _bought_ by companies trying to call people and no effort is being done to make the existence of the list known to the public.
"Surprisingly", the board of the non-profit managing the list consists of representatives from call-centers, marketing associations and telco's.
(I had a major run-in with them once, because their previous website allowed adding phone numbers to the do-not-call-list without verification. So I tried adding all of Belgium's phone numbers with a script).