Just when you thought you had enough to fret about, here’s comes yet another Internet worry: Spam Over Internet Telephony, appealingly acronymed “SPIT.” As reported in MIT’s Technology Review, SPIT is the potential use of VOiP telephone services to send spam via voice mail, rather than via e-mail. Just imagine having hundreds of Viagra ads and confidential requests from Nigerian ex-strongman in your voice mail each morning. As TR says “it’s a nightmare that few of us want to imagine.”
Congress, however, might want to wait a bit before reaching for its regulatory pen on this one. Turns out that the private-sector is already coming up with a solution. A VOiP firm called Qovia has already developed software that it says can filter out 95 percent of potential SPIT. So, if we’re lucky, none of us will ever have to worry about SPIT–or learn the no doubt equally stomach-turning acronyms of legislation to regulate it.
The Technology Liberation Front is the tech policy blog dedicated to keeping politicians' hands off the 'net and everything else related to technology.
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