More than 48 billion robocalls bombard American phones each year, taking the \u2018phone\u2019 out of \u2018smartphone\u2019 for many consumers. Yet while the problem has drastically worsened over the past several years, there may be hope on the horizon. Private, third party companies are giving consumers ways to divert or even combat robocalls. And the FCC has finally cleared up the regulatory confusion that contributed to phone carrier reluctance to directly address the problem themselves. We can hope that in ten years, the robocall scourge will seem as quaint as worries about spam email do today, despite being just as seemingly intractable an issue in the 1990s.
What is spoofing? What is audio fingerprinting? Why don\u2019t cell phone carriers prevent robocalls? How serious is the problem of spam calls? How has email spam become more manageable? How did email change the world?
Further Reading:Why Robocalls Are Even Worse Than You Thought, written by Tim Harper
Robocalls are overwhelming hospitals and patients, threatening a new kind of health crisis, written by Tony Romm
RoboKiller App
How to Stop Robocalls\u2014 Or At Least Slow Them Down, written by Lily Hay Newman
Related Content:Practical Problems with Regulating Tech in the Public Interest, written by Will Rinehart
The Social Consequences of Multilevel Marketing, written by Pamela J. Hobart
Has Your Phone Hacked Your Brain, Building Tomorrow Podcast
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.