[ NNSquad ] Re: VoIP Spam (SPIT) on the rise

[Barry Gold <bgold@matrix-consultants.com>]

Lauren Weinstein wrote:
> http://www.voip-news.com/feature/voip-spam-spit-030408/

I would assume that VoIP spam would be subject to the same rules as 
other unsolicited commercial calls (e.g., the FDA Do-Not-Call list) -- 
assuming you can track down the caller.  In some cases, that may require 
staying on the line and pretending to be interested, at least long 
enough to find out who the call is on behalf of.

It occurs to me that Credit Card companies could do a lot to help the 
fight against all DoNotCall violations -- and to a lesser extent for 
spam.  For every card, they could give you two numbers -- one that you 
use for normal transactions, one for suspected violations.  If you use 
the second number, the charge is denied -- but the attempt is recorded.

If a given merchant account racks up "too many" denials for this reason, 
the info is turned over to the FDA -- and Visa/MC/AMeX tells the 
merchant's bank to freeze the account (or be cut off from V/M/A).

Spammers'/DNC violators'/Spitters'  bank accounts dry up, they go out of 
business and stop bothering us.

"Too many," of course, should depend on the total activity on the 
account.  Ten might be "too many" on an account that does 100 
transactions a month, while 50,000 would be "too many" if the account 
does 1,000,000 transactions/month.

If we could get the CC companies to go along with this, we could make a 
big dent in the problem with little or no government intervention (and 
hence less impingement to our general 1st amendment rights to free speech).

Then if we cut off Internet connections to countries that generate large 
amounts of "Nigerian" spam...