AT&T Falsely Blames The FCC For Company's Failure To Block Annoying Robocalls
from the nice-tap-dance dept
Last year, the FCC made it abundantly clear in an announcement (pdf) that it was giving the green light to carriers that wanted to offer consumers robocall blocking technologies. Numerous companies like Time Warner Cable and Verizon quickly complied, integrating services like Nomorobo in order to help consumers block annoying telemarketers from disrupting dinner time. Independent California ISP Sonic even went so far as to praise the FCC in a blog post, welcoming the FCC's clarification that offering call blocking technology won't violate call-completion rules.Then there's AT&T.
In an interesting back and forth with the Dallas Morning News, AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson joins us plebeians in complaining about robocalls, the day after Consumer's Union delivered a petition to the CEO with more than 600,000 consumers urging AT&T action. But when asked why AT&T isn't following other companies in the industry and actually doing something about it, the CEO first tried to tap dance around the question, before ultimately trying to blame the FCC for the company's own inaction:
"But didn’t the FCC just give you that permission last year for phone companies to install stricter call-blocking services?Right, except that's bullshit. Again, the FCC made it perfectly clear that offering call-blocking services is absolutely no problem. When pressed further by the Consumerist as to why AT&T isn't helping consumers out, a spokesman tries to claim that the technology just doesn't exist to differentiate between legitimate and illegitimate calls:
“There will be rules around this,” Stephenson said. “We don’t go in and just start discriminately blocking calls going to people without their permission, without the appropriate authority. I don’t want to be on the front page because we blocked somebody’s call, if it was a life-saving call of some kind, right?"
"Last year, the FCC gave us authority to implement technology to allow consumer-initiated robocall blocking. However, there are no technologies currently available that can accurately distinguish illegal robocalls from legitimate calls, which could include emergency calls,” reads the statement.Again though: bullshit. One, this hasn't been a problem for any other large company; companies like Time Warner Cable and Verizon that have offered such services face no such problems. AT&T also forgets to mention that it already offers a call-blocking service for landline customers (to the tune of an extra $8.50 per month) with apparently no such issues. And of course, given that AT&T was the one that effectively made mouseprint binding arbitration a permanent fixture in America, annoyed consumers wouldn't be able to sue AT&T anyway:
“In fact, many robocallers even spoof legitimate phone numbers, making it even more challenging. As a matter of law, we don’t have permission to block legitimate calls – that is a violation of the Communications Act. We’re continuing our work to find a solution that can identify illegal robocalls 100% of the time. Until then, we cannot risk blocking legitimate calls from consumers. But in the interim, although not a perfect solution, consumers can use apps like Nomorobo to block these calls."
"Of course, even if AT&T screwed up and deployed a horrible call-blocker that caused you to miss only important calls, you couldn’t sue the company. The 2011 Supreme Court ruling in AT&T Mobility v. Concepcion upheld the use of forced arbitration clauses and class-action bans in customer contracts. So not only can’t you take AT&T to court if it breaks the law, you can’t enter into a group arbitration with other AT&T customers."Caring about the customer in this way just isn't in AT&T's corporate DNA. Remember, this is a company in the last few years that has been fined for ripping off programs for low-income families, settled a lawsuit for helping scammers rip off IP relay services for the hearing impaired, and paid an $18 million settlement to the government after it was found to be making bills intentionally harder to understand to help crammers. This isn't the kind of company to give a damn whether robocall blocking technology is blocking legitimate calls, unless there's some undisclosed financial and marketing/robocall relationships at play that benefit AT&T.
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Filed Under: call completion, fcc, randall stephenson, robocalls
Companies: at&t
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Far be it from me to defend AT&T for anti-consumer practices, but replace "phone company algorithm that magically detects robocalls" with "video hosting company algorightm that magically detects copyright infringement" and re-read the article, and AT&T sure sounds like they're taking Techdirt's usual position...
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And ti's the same with spam filters. The difference between blocking calls and 'copyright infringement' is that your example is imposed from the outside, the user has zero control and can't opt out.
I can still see what's blocked in my filters and opt out if needed.
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For one, there's known elements here. The problem with trying to detect infringement is there are a huge number of factors involved. The infringing status of a file not only depends on what's in the file, but who's hosting it, who uploaded it, external agreements, context (e.g. whether it falls under fair use or not) and a host of other factors. The same file can change from being legal to infringing without changes to the file itself. An algorithm cannot possibly detect that, even if they somehow create an accurate way of matching content alone with no false positives (which has not happened).
Here, there will be properties of robocalls that are known and can be detected. Not least of which would be where the call originates from. I don't know all the backend setup with those things, but it's definitely an easier proposition to my knowledge.
Secondly, if it's so magically impossible, why is only one company not doing it? AT&T seem to be saying that it's either impossible or they refuse to implement a system with less than 100% accuracy.
Does this mean that the other companies are randomly blocking or allowing calls that shouldn't be, or are they merely saying they're incompetent? The article suggests that they are simply integrating an existing product. What's stopping AT&T, especially since they are suggesting customers use that product themselves?
So, no, it's a completely different thing.
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The same telephone number can change from being a sleazy robocaller to a legitimate citizen or business. (And if you're running a sleazy business based on making illicit phone calls, wouldn't you be more likely to change numbers quickly than the average person?)
...which is precisely Techdirt's position WRT copyright infringement detection algorithms: the fact that we see so many examples of false positives (even if the accuracy rate may be high overall) demonstrates that it doesn't work well enough to be worth using.
Quite possibly. And if a legitimate company tried to call you on legitimate business and it never got through... how would you know?
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Me? Never. Someone working in a phone bank for a political campaign might do so on a daily basis, though.
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I would assume that any remotely effective system would take in more criteria than just the phone number. Frequency of calls, length of calls, other patterns, etc. Merely blocking a phone number would be as bad as blocking an IP address - ineffective and too blunt an instrument.
"...which is precisely Techdirt's position WRT copyright infringement detection algorithms: the fact that we see so many examples of false positives (even if the accuracy rate may be high overall) demonstrates that it doesn't work well enough to be worth using."
Not really. The position is more that it doesn't work for the intended result (piracy is still widespread no matter how much they block) and the unintended consequences are not acceptable.
Unless the system is so poorly implemented that friends & family are failing to get through to the recipient, I don't see an analogous situation happening here. People wanting to block robocalls won't mind if other cold calling tactics also don't get through. It's just not comparable to a situation where the **AAs are literally asking for magic, and real negative consequences hit innocent 3rd parties all the time.
"And if a legitimate company tried to call you on legitimate business and it never got through... how would you know?"
Hopefully there would be some notification to the business that the call was being blocked (automated message, distinct error tone, whatever). They would complain, and adjustments would be made to the system to allow the call and try to prevent it in the future. No system is going to be 100% perfect, but it's better to err on the side of the consumer than the side of the businesses who caused the problem in the first place.
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At this point one can only treat what comes from these guys as pure comedy.
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Consumerist story, for the lazy
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How do we know that no legitimate calls are blocked? Just curious. Trivial example, customer calls internet provider, is told will get a call back, from customer point of view call never happens because it was blocked, result = pissed customer blames internet co and pissed tech support blames customers who never answer. How do we know (or a telecom know) that a valid call was misidentified as a spam call and blocked? What technology and what documentation actually exists to show that this never happens?
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"Numerous companies like Time Warner Cable and Verizon quickly complied, integrating services like Nomorobo"
"But in the interim, although not a perfect solution, consumers can use apps like Nomorobo to block these calls."
So, he's saying that the company is refusing to offer a product that their competitors are offering because it's not 100% perfect, but telling customers to go and pay for it anyway? Seems a little fishy.
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Enforce valid caller ID info
Fucking enforce valid caller ID. If someone spoofs it, cut them off. Immediately. There's rules around this already, just because the FCC doesn't enforce them doesn't mean that Immoral MegaCorps like AT&T and Verizon and Sprint & etc can't enforce them.
Oh, and quite acting like I'm the first guy to ever complain about this. Bungholes.
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ATT provides the phone service
We need a Constitutional right to privacy. No one's land line is safe from these predators, not even when you're running for Congress!
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Re: ATT provides the phone service
cause everyone WANTS those calls.... snicker
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A few things from other discussions about this
Second, I don't know all the technical details, but supposedly all phone calls have internal ID's attached to them so the phone companies know where they come from. It's easy to use software to spoof the phone number that appears on a caller ID, but it's almost impossible to spoof the internal ID.
Would it possible for phone companies block calls using the internal ID's?
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AT&T is right about the FCC's regulations.
Technical Background:
When a call is placed, there are two fields (among many) that are transmitted in the SS7 call setup message that is received at the terminating switch. Once contains the actual source phone number, the other contains the caller-id information. The caller-id is populated by the calling node, the other is populated by the carriers switch.
All that has EVER needed to be done to fix this, is to replace the callerid with the information provided by the switch. This is ONE line of code. And it IS prevented by FCC regulation. I don't remember the section of legal code, but I have looked it up before.
There are companies that bypass this "feature" as a service. You pay a monthly fee, and they pass your calls through their switch, and copy one field to the other, and forward the call to your phone. They aren't public utilities, so aren't under the same regs.
End Background
So yeah, the FCC regs on this one are wrong. The reason they are, is because the mayhem creates a lot of secondary market products. (*69 service charges and the like)
Network architecture for cell phones made complex software for call filtering possible. Now nobody wants a landline if they can help it because of all the old douchebag functionality and tarriffs. Deprecating the bad architecture will INCREASE landline subscribership, which is good for AT&T.
So the situation is pretty much like Comcast and open networking. It would increase profits over ten years, but decrease them over the first 24 months. It isn't about change. They have to change, they know that.
The fight right now, is about getting Congress to rape the people on their behalf so they can fix their busted fucking networks without having to pay for it. A couple of CEO's keep their quarterly bonus's, and you and me pay for it out of our taxes. THAT is what this is about.
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AT&T sucks
I get 8 to 15 junk calls a day for 12 years now and just want to strangel some bastard. Canadas system ois just as worthless as ours.
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