Date: Sat, 15 Aug 1992 02:22:09 GMT
From: stevef@wrq.com (Steve Forrette)
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
Subject: Re: Pacific Bell and CNID
Organization: Walker Richer & Quinn, Inc., Seattle, WA
X-Submissions-To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu
X-Administrivia-To: telecom-request@eecs.nwu.edu
X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 12, Issue 630, Message 1 of 5

In article <telecom12.620.1@eecs.nwu.edu> tshapin@beckman.com (Ted
Shapin) writes:

>          PACIFIC BELL'S  PHONE PRIVACY RINGS FALSE, SAYS
>          COMPUTER PROFESSIONALS FOR SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY

There is so much misinformation and misrepresentation in this press
release, I'm not sure where to start.

> PacBell's proposal will eliminate important safety and privacy
> protections in the Commission's order, CPSR charged.  CNID allows
> businesses to collect the phone numbers of customers who call them.

Allows BUSINESSES?  Caller ID allows *any* subscriber access to the
calling number.  This statement is quite clearly aimed at generating
an anti-Caller ID sentiment among people who are not familiar with the
issues involved.  Nowhere is it mentioned that the primary purpose of
Caller ID is to enhance the privacy of residential customers, not
businesses.

Take a look at other states' imeplementations of Caller ID, and
exactly who has ordered it.  The overwhelming majority of Caller ID
subsribers are residential customers, interested in protecting their
privacy rights as recipients of calls (often from the evil businesses
that CPSR appears to be against).  Never mind the fact that Caller ID
helps protect residential subscribers *against* the privacy intrusions
of businesses who interrupt the dinner hour, family gatherings, and
sleep patterns.

Also, look at the telco marketing efforts.  Have they marketed Caller
ID as a wonderful new service to business, which will allow them to
collect the numbers of people who call, then generate huge direct-mail
lists?  Not!  The marketing consists of explaining to *residential*
customers how Caller ID can enhance *their* privacy and convenience.

> The Commission's order guarantees privacy protections for all
> Californians.  PacBell proposes to eliminate a key privacy protection
> called Per-Line Blocking with Per-Call Unblocking.  

Not all Californians, not even a majority of Californians.  It
protects the privacy considerations of those who like to make
anonymous calls.

> This feature prevents home numbers from being collected by
> businesses, unless the caller decides to give it to them.  Phone 
> companies would prefer to only offer per-call blocking, a scheme in
> which caller numbers are always given out unless the caller remembers
> to dial a blocking code before dialing the desired number.

"Being collected by businesses" Again, the CPSR is completely ignoring
the facts of the record.  The great majority of Caller ID subscribers
are residential users.  Thus per-line blocking has the biggest impact
on individuals, not businesses.

> "If this happens, Californians will inevitably receive more junk mail,
> more annoying phone calls, and greater invasions of their privacy,
> some of which may be dangerous," said CPSR Chair and user interface
> expert, Dr. Jeff Johnson.

Inevitably?  Where has this happened elsewhere?  Name one place.
Caller ID is currently available in many states, and in some of these
for a few years now.  Why have we not heard of horror stories of
people buried in junk mail?  Why have we not heard of people being
deluged with extra telemarketing calls because they placed a call to a
business with Caller ID?

In contrast, what we HAVE heard is an incredible drop in nuisance and
harrassment calls, as well as greater control over one's telephone.
Haven't the statistics shown that nuisance/harassment calls drop about
50% almost overnight?  And CPSR, please don't try to tell us that Call
Trace is the answer to all of our problems.  Perhaps your police
department is different than mine, but generally speaking, they don't
have a huge surplus of resources to track down every junior high
school kid that enjoys making crank calls.  Sure, Call Trace is useful
to track down and prosecute people who make threatening calls, but I
don't think anyone would consider it a practical weapon against the
mindles "crank" call.

> PacBell claims that CNID would give people more control over their
> privacy by providing the phone number from the calling phone.  This is
> the wrong technological answer to the problem according to Johnson.
> "What people want to know is who is calling, not what phone is being
> used.  If my wife's car breaks down and she calls me from a pay phone,
> that's a call I want to answer.  CNID doesn't give me any information
> that will help me do that."

"If you don't find Caller ID useful, then don't buy it!"  Since I (and
many other people by the reports of the 50,000+ *residential* users in
Chicago that signed up during the first week it was offered there)
would find Caller ID very useful, I can't imagine why the Socially
Responsible among us would want to take our right of privacy away.

I hate to keep returning to reality, but the fact of the matter is
that there are a great many people who have very real and frequent
interruptions of their personal business in their homes by unwanted
telephone calls, and no effective way to distinguish the desirable
from the undesirable.  As far as Caller ID causing an increase in
unwanted calls as a result of "business" data collection, this is just
a theory, and in fact has NOT come true in those areas with current
Caller ID deployment.  Why do we have to prohibit what a great deal of
people would fine useful in enhancing their privacy when the arguments
against it are theoretical (or is it heretial?) and have not happened
as predicted in other juristictions?

As far as the "wife at the unknown payphone" example goes, I agree
that someone who took the stance of "I won't answer any calls from
numbers I don't recognize" would be setting themselves up for
problems.  But, in practice, I seriously doubt that very many current
Caller ID subscribers use the service in this manner.  Should we also
ban the policy that many families have of not answering the phone
during the dinner hour?  After all, an important call might be missed.
At least with Caller ID, *some* of the important calls may be answered
during private times, as opposed to none.

On the other hand, actual reports from Caller ID subscribers reveal
that although not perfect, it has been useful to a great many people.
And if someone gets it only to find that they don't find it useful
since it identifies the calling number, and not the identity of the
caller, they can always cancel the service.

Again, to the Socially Responsible among us, if you don't find a
Caller ID box useful, "Then Don't Get One!"

> In PUC hearings held last year, Johnson accused the phone companies of
> designing a service that is more useful for businesses in gathering
> marketing data than for consumers in screening calls.  Phone companies
> are opposed to per-line blocking because it would presumably result in
> more numbers being kept private, thereby reducing the value of the
> CNID service to business subscribers.

Here we go again with the "business subcribers" argument again.  One
of the big sticking points of the CPUC decision is not the
availabilitiy of per-line blocking, but that this would be the default
for subscribers with unlisted numbers.  Do people with unlisted
numbers purchase some sort of right to make anonymous calls to other
residential subscribers (who are the vast majority of Caller ID
subscribers)?  I think not.

And as far as business "junk mail" list generation goes, where is a
business going to get the addresses that go with the phone numbers?
People with unlisted numbers will already be screened from this type
of assault on their mailboxes, as the so-called "reverse directory"
services are based on White Pages listings, which the unlisted
subscibers are not in in the first place.

> "Phone companies don't want you to block your phone number when you
> call movie theaters or appliance stores.  The more times your number
> is revealed to businesses, the better!  So they oppose reasonable
> blocking options and are pushing an error-prone one," he said.

Once again, the "business" misrepresentation.  Is the CPSR's position
against Caller ID so weak that they must base their argument on
presumptions that are not true?

> If only per-call blocking were available, residential phone customers
> -- or their children, parents, grandparents, guests -- would often
> forget to dial their blocking code before making a call, resulting in
> frequent disclosure of private information to businesses without the
> consent, and sometimes even without the knowledge, of the caller.

Then why not allow per-line blocking, but with the default for the
blocking off?  This way, the privacy phreaks can have their way by
having blocking enabled on their lines for all calls, and the people
who prefer to enhance THEIR privacy by subscribing to Caller ID can
have what they want as well.  I don't understand why it is to be
assumed that someone who has an unlisted number, so that people can't
find their number based on their name, somehow will automatically want
all of their calls to be anonymous.  Is there really that great a need
to make anonymous calls?  

By the way, it is interesting to note that in states where per-line
blocking is free for the asking, the number of people who request it
(having to pay nothing to do so) is dwarfed by the number of people
who pay $60+ for a Caller ID box, plus the $5 or so per month for the
service.  Does this not tell you where public opinion is on this
issue?

> "Subscriber privacy is more important that Pacific Bell's profits."

Subscriber privacy is also more important than Socially Responsible
politics.

The CPSR seems to have learned a lot from the RBOCs.  The misinformation, 
disinformation, and twisted facts and arguments in the above press
release are on the same level as the RBOCs PR to get into the
information publishing industry.


Steve Forrette, stevef@wrq.com, I do not speak for my employer.