It happened again. Just about every day, my cell phone is ringing from a number I don’t recognize. There was a time I’d pick up right away, but now I immediately plug the number into a search engine to see if it’s been identified as a robocall, those annoying computerized marketing calls. Once I confirm, I then block the number. I know I’ve missed more than a few calls from people I want to talk to, because I don’t want to respond to what I thought must be a robocall.
Robocalls are a relatively recent phenomenon on the cell phone. Two years ago, I stopped the assault on my home landline by buying a phone with built-in software to detect and deflect such calls. My home went from an incessant disruptive ringing to relative peace and quiet. Relative because some of the calls still make it past the barrier. And there is no way — it seems — to stop the robocalls from government agencies, and even some nonprofits.
Now the meager protection I have for my landline and cell phone is in jeopardy. The Federal Communications Commission is reviewing nothing short of a despicable plan to allow robocalls from bottom feeding marketers to go straight to voicemail. It’s called ringless voicemail from a company called All About the Message, which wants to be free of the regulations from the Telephone Consumer Protection Act. Ringless voicemail is not a phone call, they claim, since it does not ring the phone. That’s some semantic sleight of hand! And it’s not only patently false, but it also obscures what this company would really gain — the ability to skirt the "do not call" rules, and to override blocking software and programs. Susan Grant, one of the country’s leading consumer advocates, says about ringless voicemail, “This technology, A, is essentially a perverted use of the standard voicemail system.” Grant is the Director of Consumer Protection and Privacy at the Consumer Federation of America.
Should the FCC approve this plan, your cell phone and mine will become storage centers for automated unwanted messages all day, every day. Extra galling — we would be forced to pay for messages we do not want! Can this get more outrageous? And how can this be something the Commission would approve?
That’s what other angry consumers and consumer groups want to know. Thousands have voiced opposition to the FCC about the proposed ringless voicemail. That’s in addition to last year’s 3.4 million complaints to the commission about traditional robocalls.
I worry about FCC Chairman Ajit Pai’s apparent corporate boosterism, which would make the ringless voicemail appealing. Those of us fighting any further encroachment into our private spaces have got to make our voices even louder to drown out any possibility of a world of incessant unwanted robocalls.
I know this is not an issue tantamount to world peace, but it is about peace — peace of mind.
