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These calls are already illegal. There is a Do not call list. The gov has just been completely inept at enforcement, I don’t think we need extra tax, just enfor

These calls are already illegal. There is a Do not call list. The gov has just been completely inept at enforcement, I don’t think we need extra tax, just enforce the laws we have.

hannasanarion 4y ago
The point is that, if there is a per-call cost that everybody has to pay, it becomes much harder for spammers to justify automatically calling hundreds of thousands of numbers per day, while regular people who make one or two calls a day won't notice. "enforcing the laws we have" isn't enough because spoofing exists and many of the spammers operate across borders.
vpribish 4y ago
clearly the current model doesn't work well enough. US laws don't stop Nigerian scammers abusing weak telecom systems. Adding a tax paid by the carrier incentivises them to collect it from the upstream chain all the way back to the caller.
- MarkMarine 4y ago
  Us laws COULD stop these scammers, but the govt has been too scared to actually lock out the carriers that are carrying these spam calls or selling these big blocks of local numbers. It seems like they are starting to play hardball, but we’ll see: “ The Cox/Jones/Sumco Panama operation appears to be responsible for making more than eight billion unlawful prerecorded message calls to American consumers since at least 2018. The robocalls include prerecorded marketing messages which encouraged consumers to follow prompts to speak with a “warranty specialist” about extending or reinstating their car warranty. As announced on July 7, the enforcement bureau issued a notice authorizing all voice service providers to cease carrying any traffic originating from the Cox/Jones/Sumco Panama operation consistent with FCC regulations. At the same time, the Bureau sent cease-and-desist letters to eight voice service provider to warn them to stop carrying this suspicious traffic. The eight service providers have not responded to the letters and so, as provided in the public notice, the bureau is directing all other carriers to refuse to carry this traffic.” Basically what the FCC decided to do was ID this org, tell the carriers who sell to this org to stop, and if they don’t stop, require other carriers to lock out the carriers who sell to the spammer. https://www.mykxlg.com/news/national/fcc-targeting-phone-service-providers-to-stop-robocalls/article_6b039ec9-3c2a-5da9-b774-9725cb9eb32e.html https://www.mykxlg.com/news/national/fcc-targeting-phone-ser...
  - thfuran 4y ago
    How many years and millions of dollars does it take for an enforcement action like this? I think a per-call fee that can be cheaply assessed by carriers on callers that renders such spamming unprofitable in the first place is likely to be a far more efficient approach.
- hedora 4y ago
  Easy solution: The telco automatically credits 75% of the tax to your account. They then attempt to collect 100% of the tax from the caller. At that point, the free market gets to decide if it's cheaper to eat the cost of the call (remember, each subscriber sets the amount of the tax), or secure their infrastructure.

These calls are already illegal. There is a Do not call list. The gov has just been completely inept at enforcement, I don’t think we need extra tax, just enforce the laws we have.

hannasanarion 4y ago

The point is that, if there is a per-call cost that everybody has to pay, it becomes much harder for spammers to justify automatically calling hundreds of thousands of numbers per day, while regular people who make one or two calls a day won't notice. "enforcing the laws we have" isn't enough because spoofing exists and many of the spammers operate across borders.

vpribish 4y ago

clearly the current model doesn't work well enough. US laws don't stop Nigerian scammers abusing weak telecom systems. Adding a tax paid by the carrier incentivises them to collect it from the upstream chain all the way back to the caller.

MarkMarine 4y ago
Us laws COULD stop these scammers, but the govt has been too scared to actually lock out the carriers that are carrying these spam calls or selling these big blocks of local numbers. It seems like they are starting to play hardball, but we’ll see: “ The Cox/Jones/Sumco Panama operation appears to be responsible for making more than eight billion unlawful prerecorded message calls to American consumers since at least 2018. The robocalls include prerecorded marketing messages which encouraged consumers to follow prompts to speak with a “warranty specialist” about extending or reinstating their car warranty. As announced on July 7, the enforcement bureau issued a notice authorizing all voice service providers to cease carrying any traffic originating from the Cox/Jones/Sumco Panama operation consistent with FCC regulations. At the same time, the Bureau sent cease-and-desist letters to eight voice service provider to warn them to stop carrying this suspicious traffic. The eight service providers have not responded to the letters and so, as provided in the public notice, the bureau is directing all other carriers to refuse to carry this traffic.” Basically what the FCC decided to do was ID this org, tell the carriers who sell to this org to stop, and if they don’t stop, require other carriers to lock out the carriers who sell to the spammer. https://www.mykxlg.com/news/national/fcc-targeting-phone-service-providers-to-stop-robocalls/article_6b039ec9-3c2a-5da9-b774-9725cb9eb32e.html https://www.mykxlg.com/news/national/fcc-targeting-phone-ser...
- thfuran 4y ago
  How many years and millions of dollars does it take for an enforcement action like this? I think a per-call fee that can be cheaply assessed by carriers on callers that renders such spamming unprofitable in the first place is likely to be a far more efficient approach.
hedora 4y ago
Easy solution: The telco automatically credits 75% of the tax to your account. They then attempt to collect 100% of the tax from the caller. At that point, the free market gets to decide if it's cheaper to eat the cost of the call (remember, each subscriber sets the amount of the tax), or secure their infrastructure.