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caller-id and the FCCwriting

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1994-05-16 · 3 min read · Edit on Pyrite

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caller-id and the FCC

``` In the interest of fairness and equal time, I've enclosed a message kindly prepared by Andy Robson, who supports the FCC's recent decision on caller-id and believes that I was mistaken in my call for action regarding it. Please forward it anyplace that you may have forwarded my call.

Andy does make some cogent points. I was unclear in my account of the political situation; the most active lobbying on this issue is coming from phone companies and manufacturers, not from the marketing companies who use information about callers. And I was simply mistaken about whether the most important issues are still open for comment at the FCC; they are not, though some other significant issues are still open. Regarding the ultimate purpose and effects of caller-id, though, I will leave that to your judgement. As usual, read the materials carefully and decide for yourself before acting.

Phil

Encl:

Date: Mon, 16 May 1994 14:08:55 -0700 (PDT) From: uswnvg!arobson@uunet.UU.NET (Andrew Robson) To: uunet!weber.ucsd.edu!pagre@uunet.UU.NET (Phil Agre) Subject: Re: caller ID outrage from the FCC -- time to act

Phil,

You have gotten a bit confused by the material on Caller ID. While this is a very contentious issue, the material you quote does not clearly distinguish opinion from fact.

You wrote:

> I've enclosed two messages from the Privacy digest about an outrageous > FCC plan to undermine crucial privacy protections on caller-ID systems > for telephones. Caller-ID exists so that marketing companies can collect > information on unwitting consumers, and those same companies have lobbied > long and hard to eliminate simple, ordinary schemes to give people control > over whether this information is made available from their telephones.

Marketing companies currently use ANI which is slightly different and is not part of this FCC action. The biggest difference is in price since ANI requires a large investment in equipment on the receiving end. Caller ID is designed to be usable at the consumer level (I have a box, and I am really cheap).

The pro-CLID camp is mostly phone companies and equipment manufacturers who will benefit greatly from having a valuable service to sell. Just now, the box is pretty marginal (where I live at least) since most Tele-marketing calls are "out-of-area" or "privacy". That makes them hard to pick out since the advertizing in this state associated with the roll-out encouraged many individuals to pick "line blocking" so their calls show as "privacy" as well.

My opinion, as you may guess, is in favor of the FCC decision. Then I would know that if "privacy" shows up on the box, the caller made a conscious decision to hide his identity. I could then treat those calls differently.

> Having lost this battle in many states, they have evidently moved to the > federal level. But time remains for your comments to make a difference. > Please read the enclosed messages, judge for yourself, and act.

Actually the comment period for the concerns mentioned are past. There are some secondary issues that FCC is requesting comments on which confuses the issue. While it is conceivable that the ruling published could be reversed, the best route would be congress or the courts.

The issues they are requesting comment on could be of some interest too. They relate to a variation of the service that provides the billing name associated with the phone number. This does seem to have more potential for abuse than the number alone, tho I have the service (an extra $0.50/month) and like it a lot -- I don't recognize numbers well.

Note that if you do want to comment to the FCC you need to read the full Notice of Proposed Rulemaking from them. If you are considering an email comment, you should also read their blurb on email comments for format information. Due to pre-existing rules you must also send hardcopy for the comment to be considered. Both the notice and blurb are available from fcc.gov by gopher or ftp. The gopher menu items were messed up when I downloaded it, so you might try looking at some files with just filenames as menu titles if you don't see what you want.

Andy (contents personal opinion only) ```

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