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  • Geebo 9:02 am on June 2, 2017 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , telemarketers   

    FCC could allow telemarketers to go straight to your voicemail 

    FCC could allow telemarketers to go straight to your voicemail

    We’ve all gotten that call. We see a number we don’t recognize, but we answer the call anyway. There’s a longer than usual pause after you say hello before you hear a vaguely robotic voice attempting to offer you some unsolicited deal. If certain businesses and politicians have their way, we could all be avoiding those calls, but not necessarily in a better way. Telemarketers and the RNC are asking the FCC to allow their calls to bypass ringing your phone and let them go straight to your voicemail.

    The companies behind these annoying robocalls claim that allowing their calls to go to voicemail does not violate the 1991 Telephone Consumer Protection Act since the phone doesn’t actually ring. The RNC is in favor of this because they say not allowing this could affect political outreach campaigns. When telemarketers and politicians agree on something we should all be a little concerned. The FCC says the complaints they receive most are due to robocalls, but considering they ruled on the side of big business with the proposed repeal of net neutrality regulations it seems like they could actually agree to this practice.

    What do you think? Do you think this is a worse better or worse option than actually taking the call? Are you worried about your voicemail being flooded with telemarketing messages or do you look at it as a way of avoiding talking to them altogether?

     
  • Geebo 9:02 am on June 1, 2017 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: ,   

    Has net neutrality lost its biggest ally? 

    Has net neutrality lost its biggest ally?

    When the discussion of net neutrality comes up, Netflix is usually used as the poster child for keeping the internet open. It’s been argued if ISPs are allowed to prioritize traffic, consumers may have to pay extra to access the bandwidth hogging streaming service. In the past, Netflix had argued in favor of net neutrality. However, now in the face of the President Trump-backed FCC voting to repeal net neutrality, Netflix has taken a different stance.

    Recently when the topic was approached, Netflix CEO Reed Hastings basically said they were out of the fight. His exact words were, “We’re big enough to get the deals we want.” With those nine words, Mr. Hastings may have put the final nail in the coffin for net neutrality.

    While net neutrality is probably on its last legs, at least during the current administration, losing a key ally like Netflix may have signed its death warrant. It’s bad enough that most consumers don’t have many choices when it comes to receiving internet service, it will be even worse once the phone and cable companies start charging customers extra to have access to the more popular web services.

     
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