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From: haas%gr@cs.utah.edu (Walt Haas)
Newsgroups: comp.society
Subject: Re: Telephone Privacy Issues
Message-ID: <1174@hplabsz.HPL.HP.COM>
Date: Sun, 6-Dec-87 01:35:38 EST
Article-I.D.: hplabsz.1174
Posted: Sun Dec  6 01:35:38 1987
Date-Received: Fri, 11-Dec-87 05:01:23 EST
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Joel Rives writes:

> Perhaps, fighting fire with fire WILL get results in this instance. 
> Suppose that you are annoyed by a computer generated phone sales....

Well I was, and after some discussion on misc.consumers a couple of years
ago I adopted the policy that when I get an advertising call, I simply
put the receiver down next to the phone and go back to what I was doing.
The other day I did this, and when I noticed that the caller had finally
hung up I hung up too.  The phone rang.  It was the same lady, and she
told me that she thought I was awfully rude to put her on hold!  I said
it seemed fair to me, since she was interrupting my work and wasting my
time, so why shouldn't I have the right to do the same to her?  She replied
in a distraught-sounding voice that she was being monitored for productivity,
and might lose her job as a result.  I encouraged her to hang up quickly
when she was put on hold, but to no avail.  Then we started to discuss
how they get the numbers to call.  She said that Mountain Bell sells lists
of residential phone numbers, which are loaded into her computer and
dialed by the machine.  This list includes unlisted residential numbers,
but not business phones.  She spent about half an hour trying to convince
me that telephone solicitors perform a valuable public service.  I wonder
what her productivity monitors thought of that?

Cheers  -- Walt