Google engineers can now filter robocalls just like Gmail filters spam

This is very interesting. A couple of Google engineers have figured out how to filter out robotic callers the same way as Gmail filters out spam email.

The two engineers, Daniel Klein and Dean Jackson, were the winners in a US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) competition to try and root out the kind of phone calls that use a computerised auto-dialer to deliver a pre-recorded message, as if from a robot.

The US government agency reportedly receives around 200 000 consumer complaints about robocalls every month, which are not only be annoying, but can also reportedly be used as a vehicle for cheating consumers and stealing their identities.

In an official blog post, Google says that its engineers decided to harness the wisdom of the crowd for their solution.

In their official submission, Klein and Jackson explain that they recommend building a system that “allows users to report, to an online database system, the originating telephone number of unwanted solicitations, advertisements or robotically placed calls”.

They also recommend that people’s telephones or external hardware be allowed to automatically query the database about the telephone number of an incoming call (before the call is answered, or even before the telephone rings) “to determine if the caller has been flagged as a spammer by other users, and optionally block the call or otherwise handle it differently from a non-spam call”.

Gmail’s spam filter works similarly, in as much as it prompts users to flag spammy messages.

Klein and Jackson’s award came in the “technology achievement award,” reserved for entries from large companies. The individual first prize meanwhile was shared between programmers Aaron Foss and Serdar Danis.

Like the Google engineers, Donnos suggested an external device to block robocallers (which could also take the form of an app or provider feature). The device “autonomously compiles whitelisted, blacklisted and graylisted numbers databases” as well as whether or not the caller is using a spoofed number.

Foss’s solution, called Nomorobo, is a feature which would automatically hang up on robotcallers using conditional call forwarding.

While Google has no plans to implement the system on any of its products, Foss is determined to use his prize many to have a full go at taking robocaller prevention full-time. He eventually hopes to strike deals with major players in the telecoms industry.

Source: The Verge

Image: alexkerhead (via Flickr).