Verizon To Gift Customers With Free Spam And Robocalling Prevention Tools
It doesn't matter what smartphone you prefer or what carrier you use; all smartphone users have to deal with robocalls and spam on their devices. Verizon wants to make it easier for its customers to
Verizon says that over a year ago it added call and spam screening at no additional cost for wireless users who subscribed to the Call Filter service, which was previously called Caller Name ID. That service was able to identify spam callers and unknown numbers by name and show a risk meter giving a visual indicator of the level of spam risk associated with a call. All calls that met the spam criteria were labeled as spam on the screen of the smartphone.
Verizon notes that it has been offering free alerts about potential spam calls to customers on many Android phones already. Starting in March, the free spam alerting and call blocking tools will roll out to all Verizon customers with smartphones that support the feature. Verizon wireline users with Caller ID service will also get Verizon spam Alerts service at no cost. That service will label calls as SPAM before the caller's name if the incoming number matches the spam criteria. Verizon says that since the feature launched last year, it has alerted users to nearly a billion potentially malicious robocalls.
Verizon has been updating the algorithm its alert services use, and it has identified nearly 300 million numbers that are associated with spam and robocalling so far. The free services that roll out in March will support both Android and iPhone devices. Verizon promises more information on how to register for the free service as the launch nears. Verizon recently struck out at rival AT&T by promising customers it would not mislead them with fake 5G labels.
