samho@larry.cs.washington.edu (Sam Ho) (08/16/89)
Last week, the Washington State Utilities and Transportation Commission issued rules about releasing unlisted numbers to "voice mail" and "pay-per-view" services, over the objections of the Attorney General's office, which felt that the privacy implications were not yet clear. The background is as follows: Last year, the UTC rejected a proposal to release unlisted numbers to information providers for billing purposes. It also shelved a proposal for "message forwarding" services which would flash a caller's number on a screen. The current action was prompted because the UTC said these "services are already available", and that software exists to record the numbers of incoming callers to a voice-mail system. The ruling prohibits such a linkage. Violators would have their service disconnected. The UTC notes that this should be a sufficient deterrent, since voice-mail installation is $1500, with a $355 monthly charge, and there are other ways of gathering numbers for sales purposes. I am not quite sure what the ruling means, since all numbers, listed or otherwise, are already recorded for long-distance and 800 calls, and in the case of 800 calls, may be itemized on the recipient's bill. I know that the earlier information providers ruling regarded the disclosure of name-and-address information, for bills returned as uncollectible. I would imagine that this has something to do with CLASS services, which, to my knowledege, are not offered in Washington. Sam Ho samho@larry.cs.washington.edu [Moderator's Note: At the time of divestiture, one ruling was that telcos has to share all numbers -- including non-pub numbers -- with the alternate long distance carriers, for billing purposes only. The carriers were then and are now forbidden to make other use of the information than billing. PT]