Xref: utzoo alt.privacy:66 comp.org.eff.talk:1856 Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!casbah.acns.nwu.edu!ils.nwu.edu!anaxagoras.ils.nwu.edu!brand From: brand@mephisto.ils.nwu.edu (Matthew Brand) Newsgroups: alt.privacy,comp.org.eff.talk Subject: Re: Caller ID problems Message-ID: Date: 1 Apr 91 17:38:35 GMT References: <1991Mar29.154847.16915@engin.umich.edu> <1991Mar29.195940.12006@eng.umd.edu> <1991Mar30.194145.4202@netcom.COM> <1991Apr1.065503.21564@milton.u.washington.edu> Sender: news@ils.nwu.edu Reply-To: brand@ils.nwu.edu Organization: The Institute for the Learning Sciences, Evanston, IL Lines: 43 Most objections to Caller ID have to do with the loss of anonymity in dealing with (1) businesses, (2) help lines (e.g. child-abuse hotlines), and (3) official agencies, such as the police. Aside from making all of one's sensitive calls from a payphone (which is not so easy in suburbs and rural areas), perhaps the following policy would help: (1) Caller ID on your outgoing calls can be blocked for a small extra phone service fee. I suggest the fee because Caller ID is primarily an income booster for phone companies, and there must be some profit incentive in supporting privacy options. Unlisted phone service costs extra for the same reason. Moreover, this kind of blocking should be available only with residential phone service, as above-the-table businesses should have no reason to want anonymity, and part of the appeal of Caller ID to residential customers is in avoiding telemarketers. (2) Another service which phone companies could provide is "Caller ID Required." If someone without Caller ID tries to call, the call is not put through. Instead the caller hears a message saying that he or she must make an ID'd call to get through. This would be useful for pizza delivery places, and for people who want to preemptively block likely crank calls. Or, if telemarketers can get Caller ID blocking, it would do a nice job of screening them out too. (3) People with and without Caller ID should be able to temporarily switch on a per call basis. I suppose a surcharge is in order here too. Some may object that paying for privacy is like submitting to blackmail. It seems to me that phone companies are just beginning to discover that they control a lot of highly private, and thus highly valuable information. Direct regulation will help keep it private, but corporations always manage to find lawyers clever enough to work around or subvert the intent of consumer protection laws, simply because regulation in a vacuum strangles a company's opportunity for growth. I'd rather make regulation a sweet pill for an industry by combining it with the creation of new products (e.g. privacy services) and thus new markets. (By the way, if you want to reply to me, I only read alt.privacy)