Time To Pay Wireless Carriers To Keep Telemarketers From Calling You

from the ah,-more-telemarketing dept

Now that it looks like telemarketers might possibly have to stop making telemarketing calls to your landlines, and carriers might possibly have to allow you to transfer your landline numbers to your mobile phones - it appears that the telemarketers also want to be able to reach you on your mobile phone. Right now, most such calls are illegal (though, they still happen all the time), though you can add your mobile phone to the national "do not call" list to make it more official (or, less official and more up for grabs if the list gets tossed by the courts). An industry trade group, however, is proposing a directory of mobile phone numbers that will allow anyone searching for you (whether it's a long lost friend or a telemarketer) to request your mobile phone number. This wouldn't be a "white pages" solution, as only directory assistance operators would (in theory) have access to the directory. Of course, many people like the fact that their mobile phone number isn't listed anywhere. To deal with folks who say that, the group putting this together says it will be "opt-in" only. However - if you want to stay off the list it may cost you. This is the same sort of "deal" that the regular phone companies offer you, where you pay up to remain not listed. It does seem a little odd to have to pay someone not to do something you don't want (in some places that's called "protection money"). If this plan does move forward, I imagine there will be some pretty loud complaints from consumers who don't see the reason to pay anything extra to not be included in a service they don't want.