Apple Joins Forces With AT&T, Google and More to Combat 'Robocalls'
Apple, along with a total 32 other companies in the United States, are joining forces in order to tackle the growing problem of “robocalls” in the United States.
The companies are making up the FCC “Industry-Led Robocall Strike Force,” and the group’s first meeting is taking place today, in Washington D.C., at some point in the morning. The group’s overarching aim, as you can probably guess, is to reduce the prominence of robocalls in the United States.
Definition: robocall: “an automated telephone call which delivers a recorded message, typically on behalf of a political party or telemarketing company.”
After the meeting, the group is expected to announce “concrete plans” on Oct. 19, a report from AppleInsider explains. It’ll be interesting to see what the companies come up with collectively; along with Apple, Google is also part of the strike force, which is led by AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson.
It’s not possible to automatically block robocalls in Apple’s iOS, though a call blocking feature does allow users to blacklist calls on a per-call basis. The involvement of carriers like AT&T with the strike force indicates that we could soon see carrier-level blocking of robocalls, which would be a far better solution for users like you and me.
Expect to hear more come Oct. 19. Of course, we’ll keep you posted with further information as we receive it.