In this article we're going to discuss the pros and cons of a fairly new invention in relation to how long the telephone itself has been around, caller ID.

The first thing, for those who may not know exactly what caller ID is and how it works, is to give a brief explanation of caller ID.

To trace caller ID's history you have to go back to the 1980s. During this time, state public utility commissions from all over the country were trying to agree whether or not to approve telephone company requests for Caller Number ID service (CNID) which had come from the ever increasing annoyances of telemarketing and prank calls. At the time Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility (CPSR) brought up some concerns that were published in their news letters and newspapers printed around the country. Because of these concerns, Public Utility Commissions (PUC) decided that they better get involved in the proceedings that were taking place across the country.

The decisions of each state varied. Some agreed with the CPSR analysis that not having the ability to block one's number from being identified led to right to privacy issues that we are still battling today. In California they actually requested that CNID would not be allowed in their state. The commission however decided to allow it with the provision that the number would only be visible if the person making the call gave permission for this to be done. By default, no numbers would be shown, which effectively made caller ID in California pretty useless. Because of this restriction, telephone companies in California decided not to offer caller ID at all. Meanwhile, in Oregon, certain privacy concessions were made so that the caller ID service was approved.

Because of the problems that they faced in many states, telephone companies petitioned the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to issue rules on CNID that would apply nationwide. What this ended up doing was just making things worse. The FCC decided to make number blocking the default nation wide, which actually overruled many of the individual state's decisions. Many of the states appealed but the FCC denied all their appeals. This cleared the way for telephone companies to offer CNID with weak privacy protections nationwide. That is what we have today.

But what good is caller ID anyway? Most numbers that call us we probably won't recognize anyway unless they are close friends. What if a company we actually do business with tries to call us? We may not recognize the number. Do we answer the phone or not? The truth is, and many people believe this, answering machines do a better job of screening calls than caller ID. The machine actually answers the call and then if it's important the caller will leave a message and a phone number so we can get back to them.

The bigger problem with caller ID is that this allows businesses to collect phone numbers for marketing purposes, which brings up the privacy concerns again.

Whatever side of the fence you're on, caller ID will certainly be a greatly debated topic for many years to come.