FTC says Dish Network broke telemarketing rules

(AP) The Federal Trade Commission filed a suit against Dish Network on Thursday, charging the satellite-television provider with breaking laws barring telemarketing calls.

The FTC said telemarketers from Dish Network Corp. kept calling people in an attempt to sell the satellite-television service even after they had been asked to stop. The agency says Dish and its dealers placed millions of such calls since Sept. 2007.

A call to Dish's spokesman was not immediately returned.

FTC's chairman Jon Leibowitz said in a statement that the agency was protecting Americans' "right to be left alone."

Leibowitz added, "It is particularly disappointing when a well-established, nationally known company - which ought to know better - appears to have flagrantly and illegally made millions of invasive calls to Americans who specifically told DISH Network to leave them alone."

Provisions in the FTC's Telemarketing Sales Rule say a company can't call somebody who asks to be placed on the company's own do-not-call list, even if that person isn't on the National Do Not Call Registry.

The FTC said the lawsuit springs from information uncovered in another case against Dish Network. The Justice Department, on the FTC's behalf, is already suing Dish for calling people who have put their phone numbers on the National Do Not Call Registry.