How One Small Company Blocked 15.1 Million Robocalls Last Year

Posted by Soulskill on Tuesday January 27, 2015 @10:09PM from the napalm-solves-many-problems dept.

TechCurmudgeon sends this excerpt from an article at Wired: Aaron Foss won a $25,000 cash prize from the Federal Trade Commission for figuring out how eliminate all those annoying robocalls that dial into your phone from a world of sleazy marketers. ... Using a little telephone hackery, Foss found a way of blocking spammers while still allowing the emergency alert service and other legitimate entities to call in bulk. Basically, he re-routed all calls through a service that would check them against a whitelist of legitimate operations and a blacklist of spammers, and this little trick was so effective, he soon parlayed it into a modest business. Last year, his service, called Nomorobo, blocked 15.1 million robocalls.

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FCC currently seeking comments by Anonymous Coward · 2015-01-28 00:35 · Score: 3, Interesting

The FCC does give a damn and is currently seeking comments http://www.fcc.gov/document/cgb-seeks-comment-call-blocking-letter-attorneys-general on telcos blocking robo calls.
The telcos tried blaming it on their status as common carriers ... so the FTC jumped in http://www.ftc.gov/system/files/documents/advocacy_documents/ftc-staff-comment-federal-communications-commission-public-notice-da-14-1700-regarding-issues/150127fcccomment.pdf with their legal opinion that common carriers are allowed to block robo calls.
This plague is 100% on the telcos wanting the money and 0% on government.