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Comment by rb666 | Hacker News Reader

In The Netherlands we have a "no-call register" for companies (https://business.gov.nl/regulation/telesales/#article-do-not...)

I never get robocalls. It's nice to live in a country that believes in smart regulation!

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We have the same system in the US (the Do Not Call registry) but it’s ineffective because Caller ID can easily be spoofed and these organizations are out of US jurisdiction. Seems more of a technical limitation than a policy one.

Yep. And live in UK and have never received a single spam call. I don't understand why it's such a large problem in US.

You’re just lucky. I was too. Then my number got on some spam list and now I’m receiving a few calls a month (which is still something many Americans would consider great, I’m sure) - from random locations all over Europe. The spammer is effectively unreachable by local regulations.

In belgium there is something similar: https://www.dncm.be/nl/

"do not call me" or previous: "bel me niet lijst" and when someone violates the list. You can submit it here: https://meldpunt.belgie.be/meldpunt/

The downside of this is that it won't prevent companies from collecting your data; it just prevents them from calling you.

I've always found registering in a database to object to database registrations that I didn't consent to a rather curious concept. If they call me, then at least I know who's brokering my data? I resisted signing up for the no-call register for a long time.

For example, this is how I know that TNT/PostNL has sold my data to the post code lottery after I used their post forwarding service (you pay for the service, but they will still sell your data; at least, they did back in ~2011).

I once had an extended fight with a charity (hartstichting) where they gave me all sorts of abuse after I insisted they tell me where they got my phone number from. They were offended that I could possibly object to a charity collecting my personal data from mysterious sources (I never found out where they got it from, I gave up pursuing after a while).

Eventually I caved it as I grew exasperated and signed up. Now I live abroad and miss stuff like this :-( I got far too many calls when I lived in the UK (including one at 9am on Sunday; I was not especially kind to this person), and in New Zealand they will cram my post box so full of junk mail in just 2-3 days that I can no longer receive any mail :-(

There is GDPR now in Europe, this should fix that :) - if you live in the EU of course.

The challenge there is that you don't know which companies actually have your information.

Related information should be acquirable, eg. source of information

Most spam calls in the US originate overseas (India) and ignore US regulation such as do-not-call registries.

Same, never hade any problems where I live. Not all problems are technological.

In my country we have the same but the registry asks for ID and a lot of personal information. I'd rather not give so much to the government.

...the government hands out the ID, so they already have that information. What personal information are they asking about though?

The government doesn't know my phone number. I think.

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