The US "Do Not Call" registration that prohibited many junk calls to registered numbers was originally set up to have registrations expire after five years. That would have meant that most people would have to re-register, beginning in about June of 2008.

Good news, if it sticks, and can be substantiated from "official" sources:

DO NOT CALL ENTRIES WON'T EXPIRE, AFTER ALL

Posted: Tuesday, October 23 at 04:15 pm CT by Bob Sullivan
Fear not, telemarketing haters, your spot on the Do Not Call list is safe.

The Federal Trade Commission announced Tuesday that it would not allow registrations on the list to expire next year, when the list's five-year anniversary arrives. The law that created the Do Not Call list originally called for registrations to last only five years. After that, consumers would have to re-register to continue the prohibition on unwanted sales calls.

In recent months, many news reports suggested consumers might forget to re-register, leading to a flourish of telemarketing and home phone frustration.

That led to introduction of new federal legislation that would make registration permanent. It is not clear, however, whether a new law will be passed and signed into law before millions of registrations begin expiring in June of next year.

But on Tuesday, the Federal Trade Commission announced a simpler solution -- it simply won't let registrations lapse while future legislation is being discussed.

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There's a bit more at the link, and it remains to be seen whether Congress can get anything useful done to make this reassurance permanent; but for now it appears that there's less urgency about staying on the list, assuming one's already there.

John