From: mccall@mksol.dseg.ti.com (fred j mccall 575-3539)
Subject: Re: Caller ID: repost from comp.dcom.privacy
Organization: Texas Instruments, Inc
Distribution: tx
Date: Fri, 22 Jan 1993 17:38:57 GMT

In article <C16HLE.1G84@austin.ibm.com> johniac@austin.ibm.com (John Iacoletti) writes:
>In article <C14KH9.zr5@austin.ibm.com>, dewey@vpdbox.austin.ibm.com (Dewey Coffman) quotes scott@cs.rochester.edu:
>
>|>     Unless you act immediately, your name, address, and telephone number are
>|> about to be added to the marketing lists of a whole new set of telephone soli-
>|> citors and direct-mail advertisers.  How?  Through the "Call ID" facility
>|> recently introduced by Rochester Telephone.
>
>What's amazing is that he doesn't realize that your name, address, and telephone
>number are ALREADY on a gazillion marketing lists.

What's amazing is that you don't realize that just because it happens
some now, some people would just as soon not provide convenient
channels to create more of it.  Your reasoning here seems somewhat
similar to saying that since people die every day anyway, it's ok to
go around shooting them.

>
>|>                               Unfortunately, CNID is much more useful to the
>|> marketing industry than it is to individuals.
>
>People who find it useful will buy it, and people who don't won't.  The market
>will decide.

Fine.  Then don't send out the numbers of those of us who don't want
to 'buy'.  Let the market REALLY decide.

>|>                    or if your spouse calls from a gas station when the car
>|> breaks down, or if a stranger calls to tell you that your child has been
>|> injured while out playing?
>
>That's what answering machines are for.

So you already have the capability you want, and in a better form than
Caller ID would give it to you.  So what's with the drive to violate
everyone else's privacy?

>
>|> Call a movie theater for show times, and within a few days you may begin to
>|> receive junk mail and phone calls inviting you to join a video-of-the-month
>|> club.  Call a bank or broker to check on interest rates and you may begin to
>|> receive cold calls from financial advisors.  Call any sort of specialty shop
>|> (toy store, gun shop, pro shop -- even a fancy restaurant) and you're likely
>|> to find yourself on yet another marketing list.
>
>But Caller-ID also gives you the information you need to ignore these calls
>when they come in.  As for junk mail, that's what trash cans and recycling bins 
>are for.  The most useful (IMO) feature of caller-ID is anonymous call 
>rejection.  If you don't want me to know who you are, then I don't want my
>phone to ring.  

Gee, but isn't all the preceding what answering machines are for?
Just turn off your ringer and let the answering machine pick it up.
No muss, no fuss.

>As for the sales drones, they are going to call you anyway.
>If you're not interested, then say so and hang up.  Is it really that hard?

Is it really so hard for you to let your phone ring and people talk to
your answering machine, that you insist that the rest of us have our
privacy violated so that you can have your phone not ring on anonymous
calls? 

>People who don't buy things don't stay on marketing lists very long.

My experience has been different.

>If you really want to maintain your privacy, you still can block your number
>from going out when you call the theater.  Nothing is being taken away from
>you.  

Sure -- at the expense of added inconvenience or being charged more
money.  Horse manure.  You want the capability -- YOU pay.  How about
not having people who don't subscribe to Caller ID simply not send it
out.  Then those of you who 'want' this capability can have it and
those of us who consider it an invasion of privacy won't have to pay
anything extra in convenience or money to keep our numbers from going
out.  Then let the market decide.

>At least you'll know when that important call from Aunt Millie is coming 
>in.

An answering machine will tell me that.

>
>|>     These lists are very big business.  A multi-billion-dollar industry now
>|> collects and organizes personal information on ordinary people.  The same com-
>|> pany that sells reverse directories will, for a price, augment the listing
>|> with estimates of family income (guaranteed 98% accurate to within $5,000),
>|> number of children, number of cars, favorite hobbies, etc.
>
>Yes, and this has been going on ever since computers were invented.  It has 
>nothing to do with caller ID.

And people have been dying since there have been people, so it should
be legal to just go around killing them.

>
>|>     For those who want to eliminate nuisance phone calls, there are better
>|> alternatives than CNID.
>
>Fine.  They don't have to subscribe.

But they still have to pay, one way or another.  Make blocked lines
free and the default.  Will SW Bell still want to do this?  I think
not.  So much for the market deciding.

-- 
"Insisting on perfect safety is for people who don't have the balls to live
 in the real world."   -- Mary Shafer, NASA Ames Dryden
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Fred.McCall@dseg.ti.com - I don't speak for others and they don't speak for me.
Newsgroups: tx.politics,talk.politics.misc