Telemarketers Drooling Over Mobile Phones

from the too-easy dept

Fri, Oct 10th 2003 5:08pm — Mike Masnick

For a whole variety of reasons, your mobile phone may no longer be free from telemarketing calls. While it's generally not allowed for telemarketers to call mobile phones, once wireline-to-wireless number portability is offered, the telemarketers (conveniently) claim there will be no way to distinguish mobile phones from land lines, and thus (oops) they might call you once or twice (or twenty) times, when you least expect it. Won't that be great, when you're traveling in different timezones and they wake you up in the middle of the night? Of course, in theory, if the "do not call" list continues to remain legal and if it actually works (two very big ifs) you should just be able to include your mobile number on the list as well. At the same time, some are wondering when location based info is going to start filtering through to telemarketers as well. While the carriers insist they'll keep that info private, you can easily see how it would eventually get out. How will you feel when you walk by a McDonald's and have your phone ring with a telemarketer telling you about today's lunch deal at McDonald's?

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4 Comments

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Chris, 10 Oct 2003 @ 5:36pm

No Subject Given
I know what I'll do the first time I walk by McDonald's and get a call from a telemarketer trying to sell me a happy - I'll walk in there, yell at the employees, bother the customers, and in general create such a ruckus that they'll regret ever trying to contact me.
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Anonymous Coward, 10 Oct 2003 @ 5:54pm

Re: No Subject Given
you will be beaten to the ground by McCops and then arrested by actual cops.

Have a nice day.
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dorpus, 10 Oct 2003 @ 11:52pm

Chandra Calling
So, telemarketing is increasingly illegal in the USA, while VoIP is increasingly making free international phone calls available.

Putting two and two together, will we have a new generation of super-telemarketers with names like Prasad, Farriq, or Abioye, who call at all hours of the night and hurl abuse? They'll find ways to anonymize their origin, override exclusion features, plant phone numbers on your cell, hmm.....
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AMetamorphosis, 14 Oct 2003 @ 6:54am

Re: Chandra Calling
No they will talk to you in their milkshake thinck access about how YOU TOO CAN INCREASE YOUR PENIS SIZE !
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