Path: utzoo!mnetor!tmsoft!torsqnt!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!bonnie.concordia.ca!uunet!jarthur!ucivax!orion.oac.uci.edu!ucsd!casbah.acns.nwu.edu!nucsrl!telecom-request From: bcsaic!icxn!dai@cs.washington.edu (Davidson Corry) Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom Subject: Re: Many Software Designers of Caller ID Also Disliked it Message-ID: Date: 17 Feb 91 01:42:36 GMT Sender: news@casbah.acns.nwu.edu Organization: InterConnections, Bellevue, WA Lines: 55 Approved: Telecom@eecs.nwu.edu X-Submissions-To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu X-Administrivia-To: telecom-request@eecs.nwu.edu X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 11, Issue 125, Message 1 of 9 >dave@westmark.westmark.com (Dave Levenson) writes: >> Ideally, however, the telco should be required to provide a service >> where the calling party is advised that the call is being refused >> *because* the calling number is being blocked, and that the way to get >> through is to call again without invoking the anonymous-caller >> feature. In article kadie@m.cs.uiuc.edu (Carl M. Kadie) writes: > It seems like a perfect solution; it provides people with the most > service; and yet, the phone companies are against it. Why? You answer your own question: > Privacy and anonymity are intertwined: > The principle in states like Pennsylvania is that phone calls cannot > be recorded and phone numbers cannot released without the consent of > both parties. Block-blocking provides a mechanism for providing this > consent. The phone companies make a profit by providing a service. Caller ID is a service which provides the datum "This is X calling" -- in a convenient, machine-readable form requiring no explicit action taken by the caller. The value of this service to the phone companies' subscribers, and thus the potential for profit, is clearly enhanced by increasing the size of this data pool, and threatened by anything which diminishes it. Thus it's in their interest to make ID-blocking as inconvenient as possible; likewise, block-blocking has a "chilling" effect on telephone (and Caller-ID) usage. The implication is that the telco "owns" -- has the right to control -- the datum "This is X calling". This requires no breach of ethics or intellectual dishonesty: the people at TPC may sincerely believe it. I simply disagree: I believe that the datum belongs TO THE CALLER, for whatever reason appeals to him: a desire for privacy, a desire to stay out of some telemarketer's database, or just plain cussedness ... and the fact that some heavy-breather might block ID for reprehensible intent does NOT justify denying ME that right to privacy and anonymity. Clearly the ACLU, the Pennsylvania courts and others agree. The necessary concomitant of ID-blocking is that the callee has a right to decline to accept communications with someone who declines to identify himself: block-blocking. Without convenient ID-blocking AND block-blocking, Caller ID is NOT a service, as far as I'm concerned, it's an invasion. Davidson Corry (dai@icxn.com)