CompuServe Messages

Steve, A and B (husband and wife) break up. A is a jerk and gets their thrills calling B at 3 in the morning. B changes their phone number to prevent that, but some contact must occur to set up visits with the kids. B calls A to set up a visitation and A now has B's new phone number and the harassment (from a phone booth of course) starts up again. A beats B, B goes to a safe house, and the next morning calls A to tell them he/she is leaving. A now has the safe house number. Just like magazine subscriptions, soon phone number lists…based on demographics would become available and the number of unsolicited sales calls would skyrocket since phone shops could target specific audiences rather than the current shotgun approach. For example, Colorado now has a law against *unsolicited* computer generated phone calls (computer generated to say your order is in are ok…it's considered a "wanted" call). That's why we get so few of that type of phone call here. With demographically based phone lists…real people could do the dialing, already knowing your name (and probably address), and also probably your interests, income and so forth. Unlisted or unpublished numbers would be come meaningless. Don