Re: How to Stop Telemarketers...

[Tim May]

On Saturday, December 7, 2002, at 06:20  PM, Lucky Green wrote:

Harmon Seaver wrote:

   Tim mentioned cell phones and the lack of telemarketing
calls on his, but really that's only because, at this point
at least, the cellphone number lists haven't been sold. This
might change in the near future, as several wireless
providers have been considering selling their subscriber lists.
   It's hard to see how they could do this, however, since,
unlike landline calls -- annoying enough -- spam calls to
your cellphone would cost *you* money.

Given this fact, one wonders why the cell phone providers have not yet
made the list available for download by anybody. Well, they'll figure it
out in due time.

Someone will, but as an act of vengeance against their bosses. Or a rival cellphone company that doesn't charge for incoming calls (airtime) and hence have no incentive to promote incoming calls.

Why this counterintuitive effect? The golden goose effect. If customers of Sprint or Verizon, etc., are being bombarded by incoming spam calls, some of them will switch off their phones completely, will switch to services with no incoming call fees, or, in some cases, will stop using cellphones altogether.

(And some fraction will call their cellphone companies and demand their number be changed, make threats, cause PR hassles, etc.)

This makes it unwise for anyone to leak the numbers...unless they wish to embarass the companies or drive business to no-incoming-fees providers.

--Tim May
"Ben Franklin warned us that those who would trade liberty for a little bit of temporary security deserve neither. This is the path we are now racing down, with American flags fluttering."-- Tim May, on events following 9/11/2001