More than 48 billion robocalls bombard American phones each year, taking the ‘phone’ out of ‘smartphone’ for many consumers. Yet while the problem has drastically worsened over the past several years, there may be hope on the horizon. Private, third party companies are giving consumers ways to divert or even combat robocalls. And the FCC has finally cleared up the regulatory confusion that contributed to phone carrier reluctance to directly address the problem themselves. We can hope that in ten years, the robocall scourge will seem as quaint as worries about spam email do today, despite being just as seemingly intractable an issue in the 1990s.

What is spoofing? What is audio fingerprinting? Why don’t cell phone carriers prevent robocalls? How serious is the problem of spam calls? How has email spam become more manageable? How did email change the world?

Further Reading:

Why Robocalls Are Even Worse Than You Thought, written by Tim Harper

Robocalls are overwhelming hospitals and patients, threatening a new kind of health crisis, written by Tony Romm

RoboKiller App

How to Stop Robocalls— Or At Least Slow Them Down, written by Lily Hay Newman

Related Content:

Practical Problems with Regulating Tech in the Public Interest, written by Will Rinehart

The Social Consequences of Multilevel Marketing, written by Pamela J. Hobart

Has Your Phone Hacked Your Brain, Building Tomorrow Podcast

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