All people have a natural right to expect privacy in their lives and dealings with others, be they individuals or groups.  The entire American way of life has evolved based on this premise.  The first five of the rights protected in the Bill of Rights are clearly based on protecting the privacy of the individual citizen.

Clearly, the right of privacy in our communications has been eroded.  Government agencies at several levels can and do snoop and sometimes record our interactions with others.  While intrusive and irritating, this may be vital to our continuing security and safety in our persons.  At least it’s our government acting in our collective name and, at least in theory, for our collective benefit.

Junk mail, while inconvenient, isn’t intrusive.  It can be disposed of quickly, easily, and impersonally.  Open the trashcan, deposit the trash, and done.  Spam email is dealt with the same way and doesn’t even need to be walked to the trashcan.  Door-to-door salespeople are intrusive, but are also expensive enough to be rare, these days.  You have the option to answer the door, say “No thanks,” and close it, or to ignore the knocking.

Private individuals, businesses, and “causes” can make no such claim of doing us good that outweighs the value of their intrusions on our lives and time.  Yes, I mean telemarketers.  And survey-takers, and opinion pollsters, and fact givers, and political callers.  Make that especially political callers.  Include those seeking donations for everything under the sun, and even those who hope to save our bodies and/or souls.  Their contacts with us generally waste our time and occasionally cost us money, while we get little to no return in almost every case.

The real problem is telemarketers.  Even with Caller ID, we often have no idea who is calling us or why.  (I’ve given up answering the phone unless I recognize the name and number of the party calling.  If no message is left -- and there almost never is -- I know I’ve dodged another telemarketer.)  But, even ignoring the calls leaves a problem not found with other unsolicited contacts: we are frequently charged for the privilege of receiving such calls whether they come in on a metered landline or by wasting our minutes on a cell phone.  This is particularly harmful for the poor and the elderly.

Nothing that has been done by our governments (at the national or state levels) or by regulatory agencies has done anything to reduce this problem.  The Do Not Call lists are a joke.  On us.  Enforcement is nearly impossible.  Rogue callers will simply shift to a different corporate name or address or phone bank.  Many calls originate outside the country, anyway.  What to do, what to do?    

Perhaps capitalism has the answer.  Our time resource is both valuable and limited.  Allow us to charge for it.  The charge need not be excessive in order to produce the desired result.  Currently, robocalling a dozen different phone numbers costs the caller in the vicinity of 1¢.  Suppose we decided to value our time at the currently bandied-about proposed minimum wage of $15.00 per hour.  That would allow a charge of at least 25¢ per minute per call.  It stands to reason that a change in the cost to place a nuisance call from less than a tenth of a cent to 25¢ or more would discourage all but the most determined of scammers from intruding into our lives.  

How could it work?  Ring-ring.  (Since you now have a reason to answer, almost every call will be answered by a live person if one is present.)  “Hello, this is Rachel with....”  Hang up.  Count to three, lift the receiver and dial or punch *00 (or some other simple code established by the phone companies for this purpose) to tell the phone company to charge the caller.  If Cousin Sue calls or your auto mechanic calls to tell you your car is ready for pick up, you don’t enter the *00 code.

The phone company then charges the caller the 25¢.  Why should they do this?  Because they get to keep 10¢ of it for doing the bookkeeping and collecting the fee.  The other 15¢ gets credited to your phone bill.  Whenever your credits exceed your bill’s balance by more than $5, the phone company has to send you the money either by check or electronic payment.

Do you think the phone companies would like to get 10¢ per call for something they are currently getting less than a tenth of a cent for?  It stands to reason they’d love it.  Their loyalty might even return to the line holder rather than to the caller (don’t hold your breath on that part, though).

What do the phone companies do if the caller refuses to pay?  The same thing they’d do if you didn’t pay: they shut off their phone, and keep it shut off until they finally pay up.    

How difficult would it be to implement this?  Not very.  It would require a new *00 or other code to tell them to charge for the call.  No new equipment, just a new attitude.     

What if the caller protests he’s only calling for our benefit?  Let him prove it.  If his value to you  is real, you won’t charge him, will you?  Whether or not to charge for the call should be solely at the discretion of the receiver; the caller gets no prior opinion about the value of his call, only you do.   Only the receiver gets an opinion, not the phone company, not the fund-raiser, not the pest control company or chimney sweep, or the other millions of people who feel entitled to a tiny bit of your most precious possession, your time.  If you like Congressman X, don’t charge him.  Dislike your brother-in-law, charge him and let the family fight begin

We own all of our own time.  Why should we have to give it away for free to anyone with a telephone who chooses to bother us?  Let the market solve the problem.

Ron Pittenger can be emailed at ron_pittenger@yahoo.com.