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 Posté le: Mar Oct 01, 2013 9:14 am Sujet du message: Local firm targets telemarketers with phone firewa |
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{Local firm targets telemarketers with phone firewall}
Do not call: Steven McAuley’s company has developed phone number masking technology to thwart robocalls|PHOTO © Dominic SchaeferBy Nelson BennettTue Jul 30, 2013 12:01am PST“Congratulations! You are the lucky winner of our grand prize…”When a phone call or SMS text starts that way, odds are good it’s a telemarketer offering a free vacation or some other prize.Sometimes the offers appear to come from reputable companies, like Telus (TSX:T), which recently started warning customers of a spoofing scam in which customers were told they had won a prize and were then asked for credit card information. “It can lead to identity theft, which is why it’s very concerning for us,[url=http://www.moncler-sale.org]moncler on sale[/url],” said Telus spokeswoman Liz Sauvé.The 11.8 million Canadians who are on a national do-not-call registry might well wonder why they are still getting phone spam. They might also wonder how these telemarketers got their mobile phone numbers.While some of the calls are randomly generated, many emails and phone numbers used by telemarketers are scraped from online classified ad websites like Craigslist.“This is a consistent problem, and it’s happening around the globe,” said Steven McAuley, founder and CEO of Privatis Technology Corp., which has developed a secure messaging system to help fight robocalls (calls generated by autodialers).Privatis’ secure messaging software been used for two years now by AutoTrader in the U.S. under the name Privacy Shield.“When we first started a pilot program [on AutoTrader.com],[url=http://www.moncler-sale.org]moncler on sale[/url], what we learned early on is that 55% of all the calls coming in to sellers were actually telemarketers,” McAuley said.McAuley’s background is in the automotive sector. He was the CEO for GE Capital Fleet Services in the U.K. and former senior vice-president of financial services for United Auto Group before he decided to start his own business.“We knew that it was a significant brand problem for [online automotive marketplaces]. Their customers were complaining, their customers were cancelling their ads and demanding refunds, their customers were suing them.“What they’d say is,[url=http://www.moncler-sale.org]moncler sale[/url], ‘I just put my car, my RV, my motorcycle for sale on your site,[url=http://www.moncler-sale.org]moncler sale[/url],[url=http://www.moncler-sale.org]discount moncler jackets[/url], and here it is two days later and the only calls I’m getting are from these telemarketers or fraudsters – I want you to make it stop.’”McAuley founded Privatis in the U.S., where the biggest market is, but moved the company’s headquarters to Vancouver a couple of years ago,[url=http://www.moncler-sale.org]discount moncler jackets[/url], for family reasons and tax advantages.AutoTrader, which gets 60 million site visits per month at AutoTrader.com, is the company’s only major client so far and a 2.5% shareholder in Privatis.But McAuley expects that to change.“We’re in deep dialogue with a dozen major enterprises who all have the same problems,” McAuley said. “The total addressable market for classified ad sites around the world is staggering.Privatis especially likes online dating sites.Dating site users typically don’t post personal information in their profiles, but once they make contact, they often share phone numbers or emails, and then live to regret it, when they find – after one or two dates – that they have met someone who is obsessive or harassing. Using secure messag- ing, dating site users would be able to exchange emails,[url=http://www.moncler-sale.org]moncler outlet[/url], calls and text messages without revealing their personal contact information until they felt it was safe to do so.How the Privatis system worksThe Privatis system is essentially a telecom middleman. When customers post ads on AutoTrader.com, they are offered Privacy Shield as a premium service and given assurances that their personal phone numbers and emails will not show up in the ad.Privacy Shield changes their phone numbers to ones generated by Privatis, which uses local area codes and prefixes.“We know that buyers like to buy locally,” McAuley explained.A potential buyer or telemarketer who calls the phone number in the ad first gets routed through Privatis, which filters the call before sending it to the person who posted the ad.Privatis’ technology can distinguish between unique calls and those generated in large volumes by autodialers. It blocks the ones that are identified as robocalls.Even if the system fails to detect a robocall, the person who posted the online ad has the option of flagging it and blocking it himself.Privatis can mask calls going either way,[url=http://www.moncler-sale.org]moncler down jackets[/url], so the phone numbers and emails of both buyer and seller are masked.Buyer and seller can have an ongoing exchange of calls or emails and never know the other’s real phone number or email.“The only way that their real email address would ever be exposed is if they actually wrote it in the body of an email or told it to someone on the phone,[url=http://www.moncler-sale.org]moncler outlet[/url],” McAuley said.Tags: technology and engineering, fraud, computing and information technology,[url=http://www.moncler-sale.org]moncler down jackets[/url], software
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