Many of the phone "surveys" are push polls with questions like, "If you knew that candidate Skulduger had a standing Tuesday night appointment for anal sex with a boar, would that affect your intention to vote for him?" That would still probably qualify as a bonafide political call and exempt it from the FTC jurisdiction. But product surveys etc. are in no way covered as a legitimate social research effort.
And of course we expect to get calls from "nonprofits" that are actually being made on their behalf by for profit solicitators that take 60% or more of the amount you contribute. That does not explain why people in the Caymans are so sucessful in offering to clean my carpets or vacuum my air ducts.
I was flipping channels quite a few years ago, when I happened to hit C-Span just at the time that the house was voting on a law to exempt telephone solicitation companies from paying minimum wage to their callers. Would the brave elected members of our congress, stand up for the rights of the poor saps who could only find jobs making cold calls from their local bar or kitchen, and the overwhelming desire of their constituents to stop having their lives interrupted by drivel, and at least raise the cost to the schmucks who choose to enrich themselves by annoying them? The vote was not even close, and today thanks to our democracy the people who are calling are not even being paid in many cases unless they make a sale. Under those circumstances, I think it is a kindness to shut the call down in as few seconds as possible, so that the caller can move on to someone demented enough to order the thing he is pushing.