From: bill@bilver.uucp (Bill Vermillion)
Subject: Re: Caller ID
Organization: W. J. Vermillion - Winter Park, FL
Date: Tue, 13 Oct 1992 16:53:15 GMT

In article <18013@ucdavis.ucdavis.edu> zerkle@cs.ucdavis.edu (Dan Zerkle) writes:
>In article <153.31651@incc.com> jerry@incc.com (Jerry Rocteur) writes:
>> Unless you are up to no good, when would you ever want to call
>> someone and not want them to know who you are ???

>Anonymous police tip lines.

If caller id is ever used on anonymous police tip lines, the
anonymous tips would go away quite fast.  Someone might try it,
but this is one item that I have seen discussed that will not
be using CID.

>Any business that will record your phone number and use it for cold
>calls later to try to sell you a Ronkomatic Turnip Twaddler.  Then
>sell it to every other company that comes along.
...
>Your phone number is quite valuable.  With caller id, once you call a
>business for any reason, they'll have it.  They can call you back to
>try and sell you things.  They can look it up in a database and cross
>reference it with your address.  They can sell it to direct-mail
>companies with any information you may have revealed in your call.
>This is the reason there is such a big lobbying push in many states to
>legalize caller id, along with slick television ads.  Again, it has
>nothing to do with consumers well-being, and everything to do with
>money.

(The following paragraph(s) moved from further down in the article,
as it relates more to the above - wjv)

>With your telephone number, any company has a unique
>identifier of your household.  Databases already exist that will give
>your name, address, and so forth from your phone number.  Of course,
>with your phone number so widely available, much more information
>could be put in these sorts of databases.

>  ...      The next time I call up some mail-order company to find the
>latest price on modems, I don't want to be indexed, cross referenced,
>sold, filed, mailed, told I "may already be a winner," called, pestered,
>categorized, and proselytized.

If you call any business that has an 800 number to place an
order, or if you call an 800 number for information on
products, your phone number is already available to them.  It
comes automatically on their monthly bills, and is available as
an extra charge on line, similar to caller ID.  This have been
around for a LONG time.

>Remember the CD-ROMs that Lotus (I think) was making with data on
>every household they could?  You couldn't see or correct your own
>record, but any old business would have no problems getting lots of
>data about you.

Because of the large number of calls to Lotus from callers
asking to be deleted from that database, the CD-ROM was not
produced.

>With your telephone number, any company has a unique
>identifier of your household.  Databases already exist that will give
>your name, address, and so forth from your phone number.  Of course,
>with your phone number so widely available, much more information
>could be put in these sorts of databases.

And that information is so CHEAP.  I seem to remember that a
CD-ROM of all listed phone numbers in the Easter United States
was under $500

>Caller id will not really help you as a normal telephone customer.  If
>someone calls you up and starts bothering you, you can just hang up.

Locally a trace is available without subscribing - but it will
cost you money  - about $7.00 if I remember.  And that number
will only be turned over to law-enforcement agencies if you
wish to bring charges against the caller.  Having caller-id
will let you know who is calling, but I doubt that would/could
be used as evidence in court.


-- 
Bill Vermillion - bill@bilver.oau.org  bill.vermillion@oau.org
                - bill@bilver.uucp 
                - ..!{peora|ge-dab|tous|tarpit}!bilver!bill

Newsgroups: comp.dcom.modems