Audiospam

I know without asking that anybody who would be reading this blog (or maybe any blog) is sick to death of automated junk political phone calls. Here in Michigan these calls all have a certain frantic tone to them that is pathetic. I've heard from both Democrats and Republicans, and even one Socialist. I say 'heard from' although I never listen to the whole thing. I can usually tell that it's a junk call before I answer it, because it has an 800 or 888 area code. If I can get to the phone on time, I can answer and then hang up without having to hear a word. Otherwise, it goes on to our answering machine, and the offending ad echoes through the house from the loudspeaker. It's all intrusive and offensive.

It occurred to me that these messages must be like spam email. Everyone hates them, supposedly. No-one ever listens to any of them if they can help it. So where is the benefit to the parties and candidates? There must be at least some unfortunate souls who are so bereft of sense and decency that they actually listen to these ads and are influenced by them. I figure that these are the same folks that spammers are trying to reach, that tiny fraction of 1% of email recipients who will buy the advertised questionable products and thus justify the cost of sending the spam to huge numbers of other uninterested recipients.

We haven't been able to legislate spam email away. But we were able to get the National Do Not Call Registry to prevent commercial solicitors from calling us. Unfortunately, political parties and other non-profit organizations were able to lobby their way past this, so they are not bound by the NDNCR. Hmmm. Do you think that might be because the congresspersons who wrote the legislation might have an interest in being able to use phone soliciting for their own purposes? No, couldn't be.

Do you know the worst part about automated phone advertising? You can yell, and scream, and curse all you want, and nobody hears you. And there is no-one to whom you can demand "Take me off of your phone list. I never want to get another call from you."