Abstract: Telemarketing is an important means used by sellers to sell goods or services in the electronic information era. In order to protect public interests and the privacy of telephone subscribers and to prevent sellers from passing on their operating costs to others, the legal regulation on telemarketing should be strengthened. The United States has formulated a series of legal documents to regulate telemarketing; a more stringent restriction is placed on the subject, object and time of telemarketing. Although there exist some deficiencies in the U.S. telemarketing legal regulations, for example, the protection scope for the telephone users is too narrow, these provisions still can provide a certain reference for China to improve the Chinese telemarketing legal regulations. China should improve the telemarketing legal regulations from such aspects as the scope, the rank and the contents, so as to safeguard the healthy development of telemarketing.

Key words: telemarketing; legal regulation; telephone subscriber