Slashdot Mirror
Republicans Want To Leave You Voicemail -- Without Ever Ringing Your Cellphone (recode.net)
bricko quotes a report from Recode: The GOP's leading campaign and fundraising arm, the Republican National Committee, has quietly thrown its support behind a proposal at the Federal Communications Commission that would pave the way for marketers to auto-dial consumers' cellphones and leave them prerecorded voicemail messages -- all without ever causing their devices to ring. Under current federal law, telemarketers and others, like political groups, aren't allowed to launch robocall campaigns targeting cellphones unless they first obtain a consumer's written consent. But businesses stress that it's a different story when it comes to "ringless voicemail" -- because it technically doesn't qualify as a phone call in the first place. In their eyes, that means they shouldn't need a customer or voter's permission if they want to auto-dial mobile voicemail inboxes in bulk pre-made messages about a political candidate, product or cause. And they want the FCC to rule, once and for all, that they're in the clear. Their argument, however, has drawn immense opposition from consumer advocates.
People want to leave politicians and marketers a big turd on their front door - without ever ringing their doorbell.
#DeleteFacebook
...and AT&T can charge $20/month to automatically remove it!
and fill up the voice mail.
We haven't reached critical mass yet, but once enough people only use cell phones for communication the floodgates will be opened.
to document every politician who does this, how often, and about what. It will offer no commentary on whether it is good or bad, whether the politician should be thrown out of office or given a medal. Just that they did it, how often, and about what.
Who is willing to help me post bail when I'm arrested for it?
Let them.
The backlash to ghost Republican voicemail spam will be so severe Reagan, Nixon, and Lincoln will all posthumously switch to the Democratic Party.
Let them do this. I'll route their call to a custom voicemail message saying that they agree to abide by a rather restrictive EULA in return for leaving a voicemail. Additionally, the charge for leaving such a ringless voicemail will be in the mid four to five-figures range.
Naturally, any disputes with the EULA must be settled via arbitration by a "neutral" arbiter service that I've paid off well in advance to find in my favor a majority of the time.
*#61# (call) - Shows if Voice Mail (voice forwarding) is enabled and your Voice Mail number.
#004# (call) - Disable all Voice Mail forwards.
If your network is non-standard (or your network operator is a prick) those don't work, call customer support and ask them to disable Voice Mail completely and remove your Voice Mail mailbox from the HLR.
VoiceMail is useless anyways. If someone really needs to get hold of you, they will call again.
1% APY, No fees, Online Bank https://captl1.co/2uIErYq Don't let your $$$ sit in a no-interest acct.
Republicans have never been big on consent.
You are welcome on my lawn.
This sounds very similar to what email is. Except you do not have control over a spam filter or are even offered one, it is impossible to keep any of those recordings private from curious onlookers, you do not control who gets your phone number unlike your email(somtimes), and finally you can't just switch numbers with ease and tell everyone who may ever call you the new number. Sounds like a recipe for disaster.
Give them a spam filter they control while also making all robocalls go to voicemail and this sounds like it could be 'interesting'. Will be lawful and legal in two weeks regardless because banana republic and greed.
but can people delete it without ever having to call their voicemail??
the cellphone providers should be allowed to give customers the choice to have the unsolicited voicemails deleted automatically as soon as it is recorded, perhaps a whitelist so your voicemail will only accept voicemail from authorized callers like those in your contacts in your phone
Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
I have to hand it to the Republicans - I thought they couldn't come up with any measures that would be any lower or more despised than they already have. I clearly underestimated them, because who would have thought they'd side with telemarketers, of all people?
Five days after this law is enacted, maybe less, every voice mail box in the country will be filled with the same sort of spam that already clogs e-mail boxes. Services will arise to filter it out. Phone companies will charge extra for them. "Everyone" wins!
Why would any sane human being at the receiving end want this? The FCC should open the question for public comment and see what happens. And then probably ignore it for the sake of all the businesses that want to line the pockets of politicians to do it anyway.
So if the spammers^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H telemarketers leave these messages, am I not charged to listen to them? If they count against your minutes, there will be such a huge backlash, it won't be funny. You will have a full mail box every day, and Verizon/AT&T will be billing you for overages just to clear your mailbox. When will these politicians stop taking 'financial incentives' and stand up for their constituents?
As we all know, robocalls are absolutely a republican-only thing and dems would in no way be happy to see restrictions on them weakened. Furthermore, Trump sucks, Putin Putin Orange Putin Russia Pissage Russia Tiny Hands Hitler Russia Drumpf, and Seth Rich definitely never talked to Assange (but if he did it was because he was working for Russia).
Time to invest in slydial
Why are they trying to kill everyone?
I think the caller should pay a tax for every phone call that gets made. This tax is for the time a person spends picking up the phone. I'm thinking 5 or 10 cents to make each phone call. If phone calls are dominated by ads, people will stop using the telephone.
First they give us endless wars in the Middle East. Then they give us skyrocketing national debt. Then they gave us Trump.
Now they want to leave voicemails?
Fuck it, I'm digging up Zombie Lincoln and telling him to take a goddamn Axe to the lot of them.
This is a golden opportunity for the Democrats to earn a quantum of cred by declaring up front that they will never, ever use this.
(Yeah, I'm not holding my breath. Anyone that thinks they're not all scum is deluded.)
FUCK THAT SHIT
I don't live by my phone. It is currently turned off sitting on my desk. I decide when to check for calls or messages, few things in life cannot wait for an hour or four.
How do you leave a voicemail without ringing the phone?
--Jim (me)
ought to include tarring, feathering, and dragging those responsible out of town on a rail - first in effigy, then on the living, breathing offenders themselves if the measures applied to their effigies don't convince them to do the right thing. It's time for beleaguered citizens to hand these fuckers their asses - literally if necessary.
'The Economy' is a giant Ponzi scheme whose most pitiable suckers are the youngest among us and the yet-unborn.
And they send you SMS messages. The best way to describe it is *FUCKING ANNOYING*. You listen to you messages and then you hear some shit "Did you know that such and such is a dick and therefore has no business in politics: Vote Asshole - We're full of shit".
I did the best I could to familiarize myself with the VM controls so I could delete those messages immediately without listening to them. The worst this is you can't leave a message for them telling them to fuck off.
Yeah, it's *that* annoying.
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
so I'm gonna say this: Why is it whenever something awful comes up it's always the Republicans front and center. Yeah, yeah, there's some blue dog Dems that'll vote for it, but none of them woulda had the gall (and the balls) to actually put a bill on the floor.
What I'm saying is this: both sides aren't the same. One is objectively worse. And every year we fail to call them on it they get a little bit worse as they realize they can get away with everything while people shout: "But both sides are bad!".
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
..is what I think a fair amount to charge the RNC for the privilege of having me delete their voicemails.
1. Auto delete any voice mail from numbers that are not in my address book.
2. Access code required to leave a voice mail message. Unauthenticated senders need not apply.
3. Voice recognition software screens each voice mail, comparing new messages to a centralized database of spam messages.
I will do whatever it takes to make sure these crap calls fail. At worst, I'll ditch voice mail altogether.
There is something to be said for putting the telephone out of its misery. With so many illegal telemarketers ignoring the do not call list, the days of voice telephone service are numbered anyway. A tsunami of crap voice mail would finish it off immediately.
This would allow anyone to flood Congresscritter's voicemails silently as well; all you need is to get their number and be on the same provider. No hangups, just long missives they would have to go through until they block your number. They would no doubt spoof, use various numbers, or use unavailable as their number Seriously though, how is this a free speech first amendment issue? I have no obligation to provide them with a platform for their speech, and my phone is private property where the first doesn't apply. What is needed is an app that can read VM and auto delete robo calls. Fight stupidity with technology, because fixing stupid is a no win battle.
I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
But how is voice message spam any different than text message spam?
Apart from some people having to pay to check their voice mail and you don't even get the opportunity to know who it is before incurring the charge?
Unless the carrier sends you a message saying who sent you a voice message. In that case it's both voice and text message spam.
ISPs are positively salivating about the impending death of net neutrality and the possibility of 'pay to play' for fundraisers' e-mails and web sites. I'm sure the phone companies will jump at the chance to connect GOP candidates with their constituencies .... for a fee.
Have gnu, will travel.
Kill anyone who approves or promotes this. Kill them, and make it painful.
Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
The best that I can tell, google thinks I'm a gay and interested in a sex change. Maybe google knows something about me that I don't.
Unacceptable plan to bend the rules
> the RNC said it felt the telecom agency should clear the way for organizations — including, apparently, itself — to auto-dial directly to voicemail inboxes with prerecorded pitches. Failing to permit the practice, the RNC warned, could threaten the First Amendment rights of political groups. > “Political organizations like the RNC use all manner of communications to discuss political and governmental issues and to solicit donations — including direct-to-voicemail messages,” the RNC told the FCC. “The Commission should tread carefully so as not to burden constitutionally protected political speech without a compelling interest.” The gall. The fucking GALL of these people...
That is not a cock sucker?
How quaint. I disabled voicemail on my cell phone around five years ago and I've not missed it at all.
The only people who leave voicemail are either advertising pricks trying to annoy you or your boss wanting to harass you outside of hours.
If it's important they'll email or text.
Andy Warhol got it right / Everybody gets the limelight
Andy Warhol got it wrong / Fifteen minutes is too long.
is to be able to have your phone answer its own calls. If voice mail can be reached without dialing a phone, I can assure you their Muslim Soviet witch hunt (which is just an excuse) team is working on a way to also answer calls for you too via a similar protocol. It can already be done, but I mean in a legal and easier way. To give you an example, they only made it legal for ISP's to sell your web data so that they can buy it off them rather than go through a court system.
Under current federal law, telemarketers and others, like political groups, aren't allowed to launch robocall campaigns targeting cellphones unless they first obtain a consumer's written consent.
Really? Huh. Then why do I seem to be getting them?
I can have 3 waiting voicemails on my cellphone (I could pay extra to have more, but I really don't need it). If these scumbags start leaving stealth voicemails on my account, will those voicemails count against my limit?
That's strange, because I want them to NOT leave voice mail, also without calling me. Maybe we can just agree on the "not calling me" part?
Let's not, and say we did.
I don't like my own party anymore, much less the republicans. I don't want to hear from any of the lying scumbags.
Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves.
Best idea ever!
Why can't we go back to using jumpers to configure slot adapter cards? Why? I say!
This is ultimately a burden on the phone companies who will be forced to store this data.
People will simply stop using voicemail and allow their inboxes to fill up. I will not listen to one second of their filth.
they are already calling a lot of people that don't want to be called.... It is probably less of a disturbance to get a voicemail instead. (they should not be able to do either but...)
Also, you used to be able to do just that, I didn't know that it wasn't possible anymore...
Ajit Pai is once again proving that his mouth is only good for being Trump's cock holster.
I use a prepay phone with an old-style plan (25 cent connection fee and 5 cents per minute), I don't use my phone much and that's cheaper than more recent prepay plans (such as $1 for each day you use it on, etc.) Will they reimburse me for the extra cost incurred by checking my voicemail more often? (Come to think of it, it would probably be worse if I were on the $1 for each day you use it on plan ...)
I want Republicans to be rounded up an exterminated, every single one of them Tell you what, if I get my wish, I'll give them their wish. Deal?
09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
...this kind of parasitic behaviour could give a boost to VoIP, where you can freely manage your phone line and voice-mail, complete with IVR (menu prompts) that help dodge robocalls (“press 5 to leave a message”), and custom filters (e.g., allow the local school to leave robocall messages without prompting, but not others; etc.).
But, to be honest, I doubt that this has much chance to pass. Not that they care about consumers. But imagine how businesses will react to the prospect of having employee voice-mailboxes filled to the brim with spam?
Politicians are minimally responsive to the general concerns of the population. Seems counterintuitive. But they're able to do this because of:
1) Gerrymandered districts.
2) Heavy special interest dollars.
I mean, even when times are rough, incumbency rates are very high.
What we also need are term limits. Yes, they have costs and benefits. But they approved term limits for the president, one of 537 federal politicians (100 senators + 435 representatives + president + vice president). The reason was to prevent an imperial presidency. We should implement the same thing for the other 535 federal politicians for the same reason - to prevent an imperial Congress.
I don't see how politicians would ever be persuaded to limit their power however. The 535 limiting the power of the one (president) - certainly. The 535 limiting their own power - I don't see how it could be done voluntarily.
Once you give politicians more power, it is extraordinarily difficult to take it away.
We need politicians that are less development officers (fundraisers) and more focused on policy and governing.
Here all plans come with voicemail service by default, but it must have been nearly a decade since anyone left me a voicemail, or since I left one. Nobody uses it. The last voicemails that I ever got were recorded ads - ads that start playing the moment the line is connected, so the voicemail recording starts somewhere midway the message.
I should check my phone to see whether I have voicemail even enabled. It probably is. If ever I get a voicemail, I hope the notification includes instructions on how to listen to it because otherwise I wouldn't know - and likely be too lazy to find out. Voicemail is passé, that's what WhatsApp is for nowadays.
I use google voice for voicemail and have the voicemail from my cell carrier disabled.
For my GV setup, all callers except a few direct family and friends get bunted directly to voicemail without it ever ringing anyway. If anyone else wants to get in touch with me, they need to leave a message anyway. If the message doesn't say who they are and what they want, I'll just ignore it. If it does, then I can decide I'm not interested and still ignore it.
For some reason, so far, most don't want to leave me message and just hang up.
This is spam. People generally don't have unlimited voicemail storage, so the caller is not only inconveniencing the recipient, but actually causing harm by using up a resource allocated by the carrier.
Grab whoever came up with this genius plan, and drag them through the street back and forth in front of capitol hill until there's nothing left.
- block unknown senders voice mails coming soon ...
Since when did /. become politics everyday?
Caution: Contents under pressure
Q: What's the best way to ensure everyone stops using voice mail?
A: Fill up their call-screening-utility/voice-mail with spam.
As long as their personal numbers including their immediate families are online somewhere.
It's only fair right
Yay! I hate VoiceMail and have it disable on every phone I have even at work. So this will not affect me. VoiceMail is the most useless thing now-a-days. A 100 calls of ... Opps we missed each other, hey call me back. By the time I listen to it we have already talked. Or some leaves a stupid long message that takes a billion years to listen to. Hey send an email then I can screen them for importance and reply to the HOT ones right away and when I have the time read the long ones and make sure I respond well.
"Sorry, boss, I couldn't get back to you, I didn't get to the voice mail you left me yet"
And he will just nod and mutter because he knows the problem well himself.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
It is easier to ignore, I give you that.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
String him up with telephone cord. And pelt him with phone books.
Ideally, I would prefer if I didn't get any unsolicited calls on my phone. Short of that though, it might actually be nice if unsolicited callers could leave me voicemails without actually causing my phone to ring: that way I wouldn't be bothered as often with phone calls I'm going to ignore anyway, and I can just delete the messages at my convenience.
It seems the same over here, for anyone paying attention.
Unfortunately until it gets bad enough that those of us who have trouble finding jobs in the shitty modern economy (or refused to whore what few rights we had left for the opportunity for a shitty job that would lay us off at the first sign of bad financial weather, while talking to us about 'being a family'...) to claim political asylum from the U.S. as persecuted non-racist cis men, or as persecuted non-racist white females and non-white everybody else, we're kind of SOL and stuck here without many options.
Now you're stuck between Canadian border patrol being hostile because you're American (especially if you're trying to get out...), or exiting via Mexico and hoping you don't run into the Cartel Jihadists who might behead you just to one up the Muslim Jihadists in intimidation factor.
What I don't get is... why the fuck they think somehow I'd listen to such a voicemail.
"Huh. I have a voicemail... that's odd, I don't have any missed calls..."
"You have THREE new messages. First message. Hi, this is Ted Cruz, and I'm runni BEEEEP... message deleted. Next message." (moody, scary, minor-key music) "The President is taking Amer BEEEP... message deleted. Next message." (Soaring, upbeat music begi) "BEEEEP. message deleted. You have no more messages."
Politicians... you're wasting your fucking time.
I've a question - how many mobile phone/cell phone companies in the US charge their customers for checking their voicemail?
I believe (and I'm not sure about this) that I can dial 171 on my phone and check my voice mail for free (but I need to check - I don't use voice mail and never configured it on my account).
If there is a cost to the receiver of the message, is that enough to stop this from happening?
If anyone is stupid enough to spam my voicemail and leave me any means at all of figuring out who they are, they will not enjoy the consequences.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
I never use voicemail - it is one of the (mis-)features I always turn off if at all possible; and if not, I simply ignore it and let it fill up. Why? Because I have to actually call a service number to access voice mail messages and then work with an awkward interface; I may even have to pay call time to do so. There are much better alternatives now: instant messaging. My favourite (that is, the first one I tried and found reasonably useful) is WeChat; I know all the criticisms, so don't bother - the point is, there are several like it, that allow you to chat in real time, send pictures and voice messages and even make a call (optionally with video); if you don't check your messages they just hang around until you have time. And you can control who is allowed to contact you. I can't see why I would want voicemail for. The same goes for SMS, in many ways; I think I have only used SMS something like 3 times in the last year.
This is a good thing since it will kill voice messages
Flat 50c fee to leave a voicemail. Statutory enforcement.
If the GOP wants to lose next election by double digits then go right ahead. Can't these idiots do something useful once in a while instead of cutting taxes for the rich and annoy the rest of the people to the nth degree?
Flat 50c fee to leave a voicemail. Statutory enforcement.
Credited to the account of the recipient of the call.
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
Seriously just search the web for any random unknown caller's number and you'll find tons of them.
You are correct but I don't waste the time. Basically if it's a number I don't recognize or I'm not expecting a call I don't take the call. It goes straight to my voicemail service. Spam calls get flagged as such and blocked so I never get them again. I also subscribe to the "do not call" lists and I don't have a land line. My actual cell number never gets used. I use a voice mail number which forwards to my cell phone so few people have my actual direct line should I need to change it in the future. Makes screening calls much easier.
... but alot of countries already have legislation for this? This being spam legislation, stating unsollicited electrionic communication is illegal without prior consent. Doesn't this exist in the US?
If it does, gl overthrowing that. Any politician thinking this would be a good idea should be auto-enlisted for each and any newsletter there is on the web, without the possibility of opting out.
Reagan at least was a Democrat for quite a while. Back in the early 1970's, he said that he didn't leave the Democrat party; the Democrat party left him.
Yes Reagan claimed that exact quote but it was bullshit then as it is now. Basically his brand of politics was more conservative than the bulk of the democrats. Reagan's politics drifted right long before he ever switched parties. His claim is exactly backwards for the most part.
And if you read the party platforms and public statements of most Dems in the 1950s through the mid-70's, they sound VERY Republican.
That's because many of them were what we think of republicans to be today. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 caused a huge number of democrats (particularly in the south) to switch party affiliations over the next decade. The south used to vote solidly democrat up until 1964. It was Nixon in 1968 that appealed to scared white voters in the south and started the transition to the solidly republican south we see today.
Today's Democrats used to be called "Communists", and today's Republicans used to be solidly Democrat.
SOME of today's republicans used to be democrats. Most democrats were politically to the left of those individuals long before they switched parties, largely over what is clearly racial bias after 1964.
From over here in Europe, what your political system looks like is one religious nutjob party that hates everything non-white and one non-religious nutjob party that hates everything white.
That's ok. Many ill informed people in America generally see Europe as either a bunch of lazy socialists or nazis. No, that isn't accurate or fair but it's about as ridiculous as your assertion.
I can't really see anything resembling a political platform in either of them. Mostly because they have pretty much identical stances on everything but religion and whether or not white males are the devil.
Only if you aren't paying any attention at all. The meme that the republicans and democrats are basically the same is preposterous nonsense and if anything they've been growing further apart over time. The difference is that the US is one country and state level politics aren't so visible to those in Europe. But I assure you that there are differences between US states every bit as large as those between European countries. Greece is as similar to Germany as Hawaii is to Texas.
I have a phone that won't stop going off until you answer the voice mail. It creates notifications that you can't turn off or clear out without calling your voice mail and deleting each message one at a time. They can take this crap and shove it back up their ass where it came from. Not to mention that this would (if allowed) give telemarketers justification to restart their abusive robo call campaigns. If they think public opposition is bad now, wait until that crap starts up again.
Each one of those that I receive, will decrease the probability of me ever voting for them. Who wants to help someone who annoys them if they don't have to?
to see if they are just plain or extra pure evil.
I have an IP phone landline equivalent with an answering machine that won't record a message without an incoming ring signal. And it has a spam screener. I don't give out my cel number, usually have it turned off, and don't ever listen to its voicemail, since anyone who knows me knows I don't listen to it and in fact, won't even have the phone number, since I don't give it out-- I forward or simulring my "landline" to my cel if I want to receive calls when travelling. This plan is stupid and only underscores the Republican's complete disrespect for the voter's interests (which the Democrats also do, in other ways). All politicians working on such a scheme should be voted OUT.
Is this real? I ran a google search and can't find any other news sites carrying the story.
How do they access your voicemail?
Do they place a phone call to do it?
I have had this happen a couple of times. It's annoying, but I will just disable voicemail and leave a message to text me.
Still, not a big fan of this attempt to get around the regulations against robocalling cellphones. Not that anyone obeys them in the first place...
Well looks like google voice will be bringing it's A game to block more of this crap. Mr Number, Nomorobo, etc will start blocking these almost immediately.
Most of the worst policies of the last 30 years have been championed for and signed by Democratic presidents. Not Republicans.
who reads voicemails?
if it is important, send me sms or email?
how about: yes to silent voicemails, and we switch to caller-pays (and voicemailer-pays).
I've always felt that voicemail can always be improved, converted to text, and browsed like a regular Inbox. Instead of waiting sequentially for the right message, we can select one from a list, and listen or read it, even reply-- just like any regular Inbox. Now that I have a political party to back me up on this, maybe crowdfunding this project will be a no-brainer. Then we can work on my next crowdfunded project: a mission to Mars, with Cardassians as crew!
WARNING: Smartphones have side effects--most of them undocumented.
Makes it easy to decide who not to vote for. A few election cycles ago I got campaign letters from my state representative that legally had to disclose that my tax money went to producing them.
Cool, made it easy not to vote for that asshole again. He did not get re-elected.
I'm a good cook. I'm a fantastic eater. - Steven Brust
LOADS of people want to do this.
You can leave it, IF I can bill you back for my mobile minutes.
If it costs me to simply delete your crap from my phone, then NO! NO! NO!
I don't care what you are selling.
Republican voicemails get flooded by robocalls and they can't conduct business anymore. If it only affected Republicans then this would be a great thing.
I'd hate it if a politician did this to me but honestly, it's quite handly for an individual to use SlyDial (the free consumer version of this) when you want to make it look like you tried calling someone (e.g., if you have an obnoxious boss at your job) but their phone is broken
I wonder if there will be someway to stop this? If somebody has an idea (short of giving up our cell phones) for a project, let us know.
This is just like getting spam...Who is going to pay for upgrading our voicemail if we can't block it?
I got so fed up with the last presidential election and fraudulent telemarketers robo-bombing my phone that I preceded my answering greeting message with the Special Information Tone (SIT) tone to trick the auto-dialers into detecting a disconnected phone number and removing my number from the list. I just downloaded the tone into my mobile device and played it into the mic on the answering machine.
Eternity: will that be smoking, or non-smoking? I Corinthians 6:9-10
I think all politicians want to tell you what to think, and in any way they can. Too bad it will get bipartisan support because they all know that land lines are like dinosaurs. But, feel free to pick on your least favorite political party.
Voicemail? What is that? Do they dictate everything to their phone and it types the email for them?
I don't know about you guys but I'm fairly certain that if I log into my own voicemail, I can send someone a voicemail directly without ever calling them. It's like option #2 or something.
I like how everyone is just labeling themselves into polarizing groups. Great job making the elitist agenda a walk in the park. As long as they can keep you fighting each other with their fake news networks and token propaganda pieces, they will never have to contend with any actual change occurring to challenge their stranglehold on you.
Outside of business use, do people really still use voicemail? I know that I ignore mine (mostly because it's all but guaranteed to be a telemarketer).
I guess if telemarketers get their way, the few remaining voicemail users will have to abandon it as well.
"If you leave me a voicemail - you will be subject to a $1000 annoyance fee. Thank you"
One ring to bind them - should probably have more fiber and less rings in their diet.
Slashdot is now being dragged down into the same parroting of misinformation, disinformation and misleading "news" that is the stape fare of the mainstream media. What a shame. Who proposed the aforementioned bill, and when? Oh, sorry, not mentioned. Which other companies and organizations support the bill? Oh, no mention of that either. This isn't informational. Its an insult to intelligence to post such thinly disguised political agendas in a forum like slashdot. Tch-tch. There goes the neighborhood :-(
but to be fair Clinton moved the party hard right so he could form an alliance of social liberals and economic Right wingers (I refuse to call them "conservative", there's nothing conservative about the radical changes they propose).
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
F*ck off.
If this passes, my voicemail outgoing message will be changed to "If you're a marketer, please waste your time leaving a message. If you're someone I know, text me, email me, call me back, or wait for me to see the missed call; this box never gets checked now that voicemail has become nothing more than an ad platform."
If this shifts annoying marketing calls, which make our phones ring at inopportune times, to a less obtrusive and more easily ignored medium, we should welcome it.
APK quotes people (including myself) without context and should not be trusted. Just thought you should know.
I wish this could be done for all telemarketers and robocalls. The annoying part is that they are ringing my phone at all hours. I predict if this is allowed then there will be apps that will come along and let you bucket your voicemail the same way you can bucket email, if they don't already exist.
They're both broke but Texas is staying afloat by leeching Hawaii dry while pretending to "save" them?
Ha! I actually did laugh out loud. Well done.
On a serious note, I said they were analogously different, not that the situations were at all the same. Think how different culturally Greeks are from Germans and you'll see a similarly large differential between Texans and Hawaiians or between urban California and rural Mississippi. Their outlook on life is quite different. Americans only seem like a cohesive group if you don't look very carefully, especially when race is involved. In actual fact both the people and the states are nearly as diverse as the various countries in the EU. We just have systems in place that bind these groups together a bit tighter than they might be otherwise.
That's adorable that the GOP buffoons are so out-of-touch that they actually believe people still use voicemail!
I'd never listen to even the first few seconds of these -- A quick glance at the results of Google's voice-to-text would tell me all I need to know.
Since this is a quick way to make sure most of us NEVER vote for whomever leaves spam like this on our phones.
Nobody likes partisan politics. But I think we're past that at this stage. The Republican party isn't even giving their constituents lip service any more. They're openly hostile at the Town Halls (if they're willing to have one at all). It's just crazy.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
Failing to permit the practice, the RNC warned, could threaten the First Amendment rights of political groups.
What a load of crap. Yes, they have the right to set up a soapbox and scream their lies on the street corner. But, I should not be required to stop and listen.
Yes, I know. I've been to Georgia and California, the only thing they have in common is the crappy weather.
Crappy weather? Did you visit during a hurricane or something? Both those states are known for many things but crappy weather isn't among them. Southern California in particular has a huge population in large part precisely because of its dependably nice weather. Unless you hate heat, Georgia is also quite nice.
You will, though, find the same kind of people anywhere provided you're looking for them, what differs is saturation. You will find left leaning liberals in, say, Texas. But they will be far fewer than in, say, Cali.
Certainly. I'm talking in generalities of course.
It's a Bill of Rights violation, infringing rights arising under the 9th and 10th Amendments.
All advertising or solicitation - including political and religious advertising - must be opt-in - and anything available bundled with advertising must also be available without it. Any law to the contrary violates the right to ethical practice of law, an universal and inalienable right. If we are to allow value to the time of lawyers, then we must also allow value to the time of others to be compliant with the right to ethical practice of law - and taking that time for advertising purposes without compensation agreed to in advance violates the value of that time.
Further, stealing a portion of somebody else's life is morally wrong, and a violation of basic freedoms. It's why we make kidnapping illegal, it's even at the heart of why we make armed robbery illegal.
In short, this proposed plan violates the highest law in the land. Once again government in the USA demonstrates it's contempt for the rule of law, and it's basic lack of legitimacy.
Swipe, deleted, swipe deleted. Honestly. I just delete all voicemails without listening to begin with.
That is such an ancient and painful technology. Probably this measure will make it unusable and kill it. May be that is the idea.
In India, we bypassed the voice mail "revolution" altogether.
...that's not Republicans, that's all people in business. Don't be stupid, don't try to push agenda. Seriously, you're being retarded.
There are 2 groups of people you can make fun of on the Internet without fear of attack. The illiterate, and the Amish.
People still use voice mail?
...richie - It is a good day to code.
Two headlines in the same daily article that are "Trump does this" or "Trump Administration does that" ... WTF?
I'm thinking a little (more than a little) bias is playing a part in what is being added here. Kind of sucks that the media (Slashdot included) leans so heavily to the liberal side.
Nice to see our politicians tackling problems we are really concerned about.
I used to find VM very positive. I could leave a msg detailing my needs, etc and then the person could respond with their reply and neither of us had to talk on the phone. It was good for those people who got that concept.
The summary was oddly silent on the position of the Democrats on this legislation. Maybe if I RTFA I'll find out what their position is, or why they don't have one.
But that would be wrong.
There's no time like the present. Well, the past used to be.
No they don't, eh?