gast@cs.ucla.edu (David Gast) (03/05/90)
A 900 service has placed listings in with the government listings of telephone books across the company. GTE said it got the listings from Pac Bell and merely printed it. Pac Bell said they do not permit non government listings in that area and did not know how it happened. The company said that they did it around the country and only NE Tel (as I recall) objected. The 900 service which uses (or will use) AT&T says that for $2.00 per minute, they will leave a message with a congressman, senator, or pres. They will deliver these messages on cassettes twice per day. The firm was listed between two congressmen in the GTE phone book that just came out. Now why would someone pay $2.00 per minute to get a message delivered when one can call the congressman directly and pay around $.25 per minute? Given that a commercial interest has obtained a listing in the government services listings, it seems appropriate to disconnect it. Otherwise, every lobby critter will be listed in the government listings. David Gast gast@cs.ucla.edu {uunet,ucbvax,rutgers}!{ucla-cs,cs.ucla.edu}!gast