This is great news: if you've signed up for the Do Not Call register, you no longer have to renew your registration. Once you're on there, you're on there for good.

So this is the statistical proof that telemarketing companies should give up now: two-thirds of Australian households with a landline are on the Do Not Call Register, and the numbers continue to rise. According to the Australian Communications and Marketing Authority (ACMA), almost nine million numbers are now listed on the register, with one million of those signing up within the last 12 months.

We love the Do Not Call register, and we love it when companies get busted for ignoring it. That got us thinking: how many Lifehacker readers take advantage of it?

If you've held off from joining the Do Not Call Register for some reason, there's now an added incentive to get your act together: the government has just extended the registration period to eight years. That's nearly a decade of interruption-free nirvana.

We're noting this a little belatedly, but it's still worth mentioning: more than 8 million Australians are now on the Do Not Call register. Memo to marketers: if the only way you think you can sell a product if by hassling people over the phone, you are wrong. Two-thirds of Australian households don't want to hear from you.

Clearly we hate telemarketers. New figures from the Do Not Call Register show that as it celebrates its fifth anniversary, more than 7.5 million Australians have signed up for the service.

Dear Lifehacker, I received an alarmist message about telemarketing with an urgent call to click the included link. What do you make of it?

Yesterday, we looked at two tactics for dissuading telemarketers from calling again: giving them a fake name so you can detect them next time, or hanging up without another word. If neither of those appeal, here's some more options.

It's not nice to lie, but it's also not nice to get repeatedly called at dinner time by someone trying to flog you a mobile phone or pretending that you're a Telstra customer when you're not. If the Do Not Call list isn't quite cutting it for you, giving a false name is one way of potentially scaring off telemarketers -- or at least making them easier to detect.

The Do Not Call register launched on May 3 2007, so it celebrates its third birthday next month. That's good news for those of us sick of having our dinners interrupted by dodgy mobile phone sellers, but it also means we need to make sure our registrations are current.

The exemptions for survey forms and charities might ruin your day when you're working at home, but new data suggests that the Do Not Call register has been a success in cutting back on unwanted telephone spam.

In our recent post about expanding the Do Not Call Register, several commenters hoped their personal fax numbers would also be covered. The good news: they will be.

Plans to extend the national Do Not Call Register to business might seem a good way to cut down on telephone spam, but telemarketing businesses are already planning to fight the move.