David Mazieres writes:
My last phone bill said that Nynex is now giving out people's names in addidtion to their phone numbers over caller-id. I therefore called Nynex and told them to block caller-id on my phone line.
They said no problem, but... They said nothing I can do will block it when I call 800 numbers. "The people with 800 numbers have special software, and there is nothing you can do to block your identity when calling them. Not even *67."
Same in Pacific Bell land. We get two options- "partial blocking" which really means tht you have to use *67 to block CID to non-800/900 numbers, and "complete blocking" which blocks CID to non-800/900 numbers. When I called the Pac Bell customer service droids to get my "complete" blocking I asked them why they won't block CID to 800 numbers. Their answer: "that's just the way it works".
Wow. Maybe I'm not paranoid enough, but I never expected this. I can never again call an 800 number anonymously to get information about something unless I go out to a pay phone. What an incredible inconvenience, and how truly depressing.
Caller ID isn't for people, it's for businesses who want to track callers. They're willing to pay for that service, enough to make it worth the while of the phone companies to spend many millions on a campaign of lies (excuse me, "PR") to convince us that we need CID for "safety". -- Eric Murray ericm@lne.com ericm@motorcycle.com http://www.lne.com/ericm PGP keyid:E03F65E5 fingerprint:50 B0 A2 4C 7D 86 FC 03 92 E8 AC E6 7E 27 29 AF