Howdy!
The situation is not symmetrical. For the recipient of the
call, it is a privacy issue.
If you are the one initiating the connection, your
expectation of "privacy" (or more accurately, anonymity)
is lower. I have no obligation to allow that connection
if you refuse to offer any identifying information.
I see this as analagous to deciding whether or not to
open your door to a caller. If the person is masked --
their identity obscured, would you open the door? Now
consider that person being unmasked, but unknown to you.
Then consider that person being known to you. You have
the option in all these cases to remain hidden in your
home -- to not reveal your presence or identity to the
caller.
If someone wishes to make telephone calls without their
number being visible to the recipient, one can consider
this analagous to a masked caller at your front door.
I believe the phone companies in the US offer the ability
to block calls that have caller ID blocked, presenting
the caller with a message that they must not block caller
ID in order to get their call to ring through.
yours,
Michael | [reply] |
Anonymity is a double-edged sword -- no one can harass you, but no one can reward you, either. Anybody agreeing with what you just said has no way to respond except replies, and it's more convenient within our community to provide ++ and --.
you have to hit *69 to allow your caller id info to go out
Please leave a message at the tone. If you want me to contact you, you may want to leave some way for me to do so, privacy or not.
Oh, and if you show up at my door, you may have to wait a while:
- You: *knock knock*
- Me: Who's there?
- You: Why do you want to know? What do you need to know for?
- Me: You knocked to come in, right?
- You: Yes. It would be polite of you to let me in now.
- Me: Right. Who are you?
- You: I won't stand for these privacy violations! *leaves*
- Me: Gee, I feel cheated.
I'm not a person who enjoys wasting time, so I don't pick up phone calls from people who don't show up on my caller ID. I'm not an ER, firefighter, cop, etc., so I really don't get important calls, for any reason. Friends email me, family emails me, and I can choose if I want to read their email -- based on who they are.
Now, I do know someone with a perfectly legitimate reason to block their number (well, in their mind, anyway, but I digress...it's their choice). They don't have a problem with leaving a message. If they do, I will advise them to show the caller ID info when they call, and if they've got a problem with that...I can just stop returning their messages. I'll never pick up the phone when they call. :)
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You are what you think.
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Something fish? Oooh, somebody values their privacy, be very afraid
Not really. As long as the people you're interested in know the rule then they'll reveal their phone number. The whole point is to identify the person on the other end of the line!
I'm with herveus on this, and use a similar system on my personal line. I don't want to talk to anonymous people.
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