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US Anti-Robocall Litigation Task Force

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Re: US Anti-Robocall Litigation Task Force

#61

Post by kmacdough »

cr1895 wrote: post #39
lotsofpulp wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>My wide-open Verizon cell-phone number is my least preferred method of contact by far, due to the fact that I cannot trust that unknown numbers are high-value incoming calls. I thought it was a legal requirement for phone network operators to leave phone numbers accessible to all, and hence their inability to effectively fight spam. Otherwise, what would stop the situation from becoming like email, where email is mo…

What does “accessible to all” mean in this context? Why do I in Europe get almost zero spam calls or text while in the US it seems like a plague?

EU may be stricter about enforcing, but I've also experienced it's very person-dependent.

People who need to answer unknown callers for business reasons (small business owners, sales, etc.) get put on lists of "known active numbers" and may get multiple spam calls a day. Folks like me who can just ignore any unknown number & respond only if they leave a real voicemail, get FAR fewer (maybe 1 a month on avg). We tend to complain less about the issue (even if it is annoying & I still treat all unknown calls as spam by default).

Also, if you own a google device, they're very good at IDing spam callers. I recently switched from Google to Samsung and get far more.

Re: US Anti-Robocall Litigation Task Force

#62

Post by babypuncher »

mrandish wrote: post #16
IntrepidWorm wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The effective result of GDPR has been less than ideal, but was a step in the right direction. Abolishing it entirely in favor of a vacuum would carry a more weighty cost.

The frustrating part is that the unintended consequences of GDPR were inevitable and clearly foreseeable, yet it was passed into law anyway and now it's incredibly difficult (if not practically impossible) to fix through iterative adjustment. It often seems like politicians and bureaucrats are incapable of seeing the myriad ways their well-intended rules will fail in the real-world. Maybe all legislation should first…

> a burden on overworked, under-funded website teams

It's only a burden on these people if they choose to be user-hostile.

There are really easy ways to deal with GDPR but these dumb companies insist on avoiding those solutions at all cost.

If companies insist on being dicks, then the only possible government-level solution might be to just ban this kind of tracking outright.

Re: US Anti-Robocall Litigation Task Force

#63

Post by black_puppydog »

rightbyte wrote: post #2

The piece is censured in the EU ...

Correction: they claim that it is. The 451 code is specifically made for that, referencing Fahrenheit 451, so using this specific code implies censorship.

However, it would be totally legal for them to provide the content. They just don't want to take responsibility for their privacy invading practices. So it's not censorship at all.

/me shrugs. Personally, I have yet to find the website I can't just close if it behaves like this.

Re: US Anti-Robocall Litigation Task Force

#64

Post by kshacker »

TameAntelope wrote: post #38
jhot wrote: post #9

This spring I was applying for jobs so I answered my phone for more unknown numbers than usual. This has lead to a huge increase in spam calls that I receive on a daily basis and Google Phone's spam filter isn't strict enough for my liking (not to mention no longer available since I'm running GrapheneOS). If you're an Android and Tasker user you can take matters into your own hands and set Tasker as your call screen…

I dunno how successful this is, but when I get spam called, I do what I can to reach a person and then say, "Put me on the do not call list, please!" and (possibly) as a result, I really don't get as many of these spam calls as it sounds like folks here are getting.

It does not work. I tried to take the approach of wasting their time by asking for their name and what not, but they are also getting trained to cut such calls off quite fast.

Re: US Anti-Robocall Litigation Task Force

#65

Post by babypuncher »

powerhour wrote: post #22
mrandish wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The frustrating part is that the unintended consequences of GDPR were inevitable and clearly foreseeable, yet it was passed into law anyway and now it's incredibly difficult (if not practically impossible) to fix through iterative adjustment. It often seems like politicians and bureaucrats are incapable of seeing the myriad ways their well-intended rules will fail in the real-world. Maybe all legislation should first…

It doesn't have to be disruptive to users, companies go out of their way to make it disruptive. As others here have said, companies can just stop adding code to track users and stop storing so much information. It's actually way less work.

But why blame the companies who are directly responsible for this annoyance when we can blame the government who is indirectly responsible?

Re: US Anti-Robocall Litigation Task Force

#66

Post by NavinF »

dymk wrote: post #51
thfuran wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Yes, I’m happy to lose all calls that come via VoIP At that point, why not just block everything other than contacts?

Because lots of legitimate callers to me are located in the US, calling from a cell phone or landline, and I don't have them in my contacts. For instance, contractors coming to do work on the house may be calling from any number of cell phones, or people buying things from Craigslist. For Craigslist, if I were to filter out all the non-US originating calls and texts, would probably result in all the spam being droppe…

Those are all VoIP callers. Few businesses have enough copper phone wires for everyone in the building.

Re: US Anti-Robocall Litigation Task Force

#67

Post by Drakim »

Night_Thastus wrote: post #27
onepointsixC wrote: post #17

It's absolutely insane that they are so ineffective. Major phone networks should be held responsible. I've been getting texts like crazy from spammer tries to get me to click their links. The messages are 100% identical and would be trivial to block.

From other areas where spam is prevalent, I think it's an arms race issue. Sure, right now, that spam that's identical every time would be easy to detect and block. But if it's blocked, they start adding variation. Block that too and they get more and more creative. Every time a way to block the spam is found, the spammers just get more creative with getting around it. It's an arms race, and is essentially un-beatabl…

I just have a hard time believing that's really what's gonna happen. I'm a 34 year old man living in a western country and I have not gotten one robot spam call nor spam text message in my life. I've gotten 5 fake Microsoft support calls, but always from a real human pretending to work for Microsoft.

Re: US Anti-Robocall Litigation Task Force

#68

Post by onetimeusename »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #34
brk wrote: post #18

It is unfortunate that the cellular companies have allowed their core product (voice calls) to be so devalued that they need to be forced to solve this problem instead of just doing it naturally. The carriers are clearly customer-hostile, as this is really a very solvable problem. Instead, we now are moving to alternate mechanisms to manage audio calls (eg: Signal, Whatsapp, Facebook, etc.). My wide-open Verizon cell…

>My wide-open Verizon cell-phone number is my least preferred method of contact by far, due to the fact that I cannot trust that unknown numbers are high-value incoming calls. I thought it was a legal requirement for phone network operators to leave phone numbers accessible to all, and hence their inability to effectively fight spam. Otherwise, what would stop the situation from becoming like email, where email is mo…

Over the last few years the FCC rules on carriers were relaxed so that they can discriminate against calls originating from domestic networks. Previously they could not block calls even if it was obvious it was a scam call. However, it's not always obvious which robo calls are legitimate and which aren't.

The bigger issue though is not about domestic origin calls, it's about foreign originated calls that the FCC has no power over. The domestic carriers had to forward these calls. There is traction gaining to require that calls that originate overseas verify their identity to US based networks. Domestic carriers can reject calls that don't verify (spoofed numbers that originate offshore).

That still may not stop all the spam calls but it will slow it down. The problem here is really that telephony became extremely cheap and accessible to the whole world.

Re: US Anti-Robocall Litigation Task Force

#69

Post by pradn »

Night_Thastus wrote: post #27
onepointsixC wrote: post #17

It's absolutely insane that they are so ineffective. Major phone networks should be held responsible. I've been getting texts like crazy from spammer tries to get me to click their links. The messages are 100% identical and would be trivial to block.

From other areas where spam is prevalent, I think it's an arms race issue. Sure, right now, that spam that's identical every time would be easy to detect and block. But if it's blocked, they start adding variation. Block that too and they get more and more creative. Every time a way to block the spam is found, the spammers just get more creative with getting around it. It's an arms race, and is essentially un-beatabl…

Yes, but we've gotten quite good at blocking email spam. So much so that it's basically a solved problem for regular users using GMail or Outlook. There's no reason we can't achieve the same with text and phone call blocking. My iPhone is pretty accurate when it classifies incoming calls as "Spam Likely".

Re: US Anti-Robocall Litigation Task Force

#70

Post by Innominate »

powerhour wrote: post #22
mrandish wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The frustrating part is that the unintended consequences of GDPR were inevitable and clearly foreseeable, yet it was passed into law anyway and now it's incredibly difficult (if not practically impossible) to fix through iterative adjustment. It often seems like politicians and bureaucrats are incapable of seeing the myriad ways their well-intended rules will fail in the real-world. Maybe all legislation should first…

It doesn't have to be disruptive to users, companies go out of their way to make it disruptive. As others here have said, companies can just stop adding code to track users and stop storing so much information. It's actually way less work.

The GDPR covers tracking of users, but is much more broad in scope. Simply not tracking users doesn't stop the GDPR from applying.

The GDPR provides a framework by which bad actors can do their thing legally without too much trouble. To a good actor, who only stores the data they actually need and doesn't track users, the GDPR still applies and is just as big a pain in the ass.

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