Xref: utzoo alt.privacy:94 comp.org.eff.talk:1887 Path: utzoo!utgpu!cs.utexas.edu!sdd.hp.com!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!decwrl!amdcad!jetsun!pyramid!athertn!hemlock!mcgregor From: mcgregor@hemlock.Atherton.COM (Scott McGregor) Newsgroups: alt.privacy,comp.org.eff.talk Subject: Re: Caller ID problems Message-ID: <34937@athertn.Atherton.COM> Date: 2 Apr 91 05:26:40 GMT References: <1991Mar29.154847.16915@engin.umich.edu> Sender: news@athertn.Atherton.COM Reply-To: mcgregor@hemlock.Atherton.COM (Scott McGregor) Followup-To: alt.privacy Organization: Atherton Technology -- Sunnyvale, CA Lines: 118 In article , brand@mephisto.ils.nwu.edu (Matthew Brand) writes: (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. It is not at all clear that above-the-table businesses should have no reason to want anonymity. Even if it were, remember that telephones at above-the-table businesses are used by individuals who may be just as interested in protecting their anonymity when at work as at home. A few examples to illustrate the point. 1) A company that calls a lot of printers about prices for printing services, but which doesn't want to get telemarketing calls from all the printers they decide not to do business with. 2) A company with a single switchboard number who doesn't want the actions of one individual to lead to the switchboard operator being deluged with undirected calls from equipment vendors, headhunters, and even personal services operations called at one time or another, either in regards to business or as a personal call, by one of their employees. 3) An individual at a company with direct dial in phone lines who purchases a computer accessory through a mail order firm for their company, but who doesn't want return calls on other computer bargains. 4) An individual who calls a local video store (during working hours because that is when the video store manager is in) to complain about the X-rated tape they checked out which turned out to be the Disney "Bambi" instead, but who doesn't want regular daytime return calls at work with the latest new X releases (regardless of whether they have a direct dial number or a switchboard!) On the other hand, I have noticed that whenever a new technology is introduced that people seem naturally more concerned about the privacy of it than similar existing technologies. At a previous company, I was involved in a study that found that paper mail was 10-100 times more likely to be misdelivered than was electronic mail. However, informed management still decided that they would not allow the most sensitive information to be sent electronically, but rather it had to be printed and sent through the ordinary paper mail system. Even though email was actually more secure, people were more concerned about it because it was new. Everyone knew that paper mail was sometimes misdelivered, that it often sat for extended periods of time in accessible areas (redistribution points, in boxes, etc.) relatively unprotected, but that was old hat and people had long ago come to grips with that. Similarly, people were concerned with the possibilities of "forging" and allegedly forwarded email letter, despite the fact that it was considerably easier to get some letterhead, and a copy of an important signature from the annual report and use the copier to fake a paper copy of a letter. Again, the existing evils are taken for granted while the new ones, even if less of a problem are feared more. I certainly don't want to discourage people from protecting their privacy. I think that is a prudent thing to do. But there are also times and reasons when individuals may willingly choose to divulge some private information in order to get a desired service. Individuals and institutions who treat that information in a way that rewards that trust should be rewarded with continued patronage, those that do not are fair game for ostracism. After caller-ID is old hat, I can see a number of individuals feeling quite good about the fact that their caller-ID is given to a company they call who has earned their trust in the past. They might find that their bank decides not to trade this information with anyone else, but uses this to route their call to their "personal banker" to automatically retrieve their account information more promptly for them, etc. This is not to say that people won't sometimes block this information when calling a business of unknown reputation. But I have noted that many people will willingly leave their business card in a bowl at a restaurant, fill out a contest form with their name, address and number, or voluntarily put their name on a mailing list for some kind of items that they are interested in--despite the fact that lists can be compiled from this information and sold to others. I find it interesting to note that people were quite concerned about Lotus Marketplace, but have ignored the fact for years that this information has been collected by Equifax, TRW, etc. and is already available from them (albeit on 9 track tape and/or printed reports; that census information on 9-track tape indexed by zip code is available and that the two can already be quite easily merged together to produce a mailing list that WHILE NOT PERFECT is quite a bit better than might be generated through other means. The truth of the matter is that many aspects of our lives are co-related in unusual ways, and people who want to provide information to likely customers will want to use some of these correlations to reach their prospects cheaply and efficiently. That can be both to our advantage and to our disadvantage. I see people largely ignore the miscorrelations (type I errors-mail goes to an inappropriate prospect and of course never find out about the type II errors-mail not sent to an appropriate prospect). I've been married for 12 years, but still occasionally get questionaires aimed at singles. But I used to get more when I lived in an apartment--why? because single family homes are much more likely to be occupied by married people than are apartments. It is certainly not exclusively so, and so some mail is mistargetted. And of course, I live in a community with a fairly high divorce rate, and above average disposable income, so some of those singles questionaires are sent to single family houses like mine just the same (or maybe they are meant for my 2 year old). Even in this medium see how much information people willingly give away to others: their name, interests, some indication of their knowledge of and access to computers, the name of an organization they belong to, and (through routing information, cross checked with registered UUNET or Internet site information) some indication of their geographic location. Information that others actually collect and use; for instance, head-hunters, seminar producers, computer product sales people all find contacts through this medium. Amazing isn't it.