I used to receive repeated calls from strange 800-numbers. When I picked up, nothing but silence, then a click, followed up the lovely dial tone. I eventually traced the call and discovered they were coming from my local cable company. Once a week they would come, like clockwork. After repeated attempts, I was finally greeted by a salesperson, trying to peddle the usual promotion. I asked her why I had picked up so many times, yet never spoke to someone with a pulse? She informed me that they have an auto-dialer that randomly dials a list of numbers… when one caller picks up, the others are disconnected. First come, first served.

I thought, “Great, it’s not bad enough they are bothering people, but now they are bothering swarms of people at the same time.” Technology sure can be used for great evil it seems. It was a joyous day when I purchased my first cellular phone. No more calls from the local ambulatory burn ward looking for donations. No more calls from marketing agencies and smarmy cable companies. But it seems like the dream has since ended.

Almost overnight, I’ve been plagued with calls from Mexican lottery agencies (I actually won $12 million in a lottery I never entered? Really? I’m more interested in how you got my cell number), my bank (it’s not enough I let you play with my money, making you rich?), my service provider, a slew of marketing agencies, and even my university. And they just don’t give up either. If they don’t talk to a living person, they incessantly call back. I guess if they gave up too quickly, people would be out of a job. I suppose everyone has to pay the mortgage. But enough is enough, seriously.

I get peppered with calls, daily… three times a day by some agencies. I answer and nothing… looks like someone else picked up before me. I wonder how this is legal? I guess because shoving promotions down our throats generates revenue—respecting a person’s privacy doesn’t. Well today I decided to look up my carriers privacy policy because I’ve had enough (and found myself with some free time): During a most recent meeting with a client, I was harassed twice—the meeting lasted 45 minutes.

It turns out my carrier (and I’m sure they are all the same) collect and share a lot of information about you. They hide it under the guise of “improving service” and offering products and services they feel you might find attractive (I would find notices that service charges have dropped, so I don’t pay more than other customers for the exact same feature, attractive). Basically, how they can squeeze more money out of you, because let’s face it, they aren’t calling to lower the price of your monthly invoice. With some millions of subscribers, even an extra 50 cents tacked onto your monthly bill pays big dividends. It also buys new Bently’s for the senior stock holders. Win, win.

Well, it also turns out you can do something about it. By calling in and talking to a low level customer service representative, you can ask tell them to remove you from their marketing list. No special number to call or person to contact. No special menu item to select from the list. The only documentation of this “service” is buried on my carriers website:

Fido shares information with other Fido related companies (I love this inclusion and its specificity), including the Rogers companies, in order to offer customers products and services that they may find attractive. Notices on sharing information are contained on Fido’s invoice and on fido.ca. If customers do not want to be marketed with these products and services, they can contact Fido at 1-888-481-3436.

While I doubt they’ll stop collecting data and passing that information along, they’ll at least stop harassing you about useless new promotions that only serve to eat up your monthly minutes. I’m happy to put an end to at least some of the nuisances in my life.