The telephone companies now offer a variety of options to the public. These include Call Forwarding, Call Waiting, Call Back, and others. One of the features now available is Caller I.D. This is a service that allows a subscriber to obtain information about the calling party, specifically the caller's telephone number and in some instances the caller's name.
An issue that has arisen from this service is protection of the privacy of the calling party. There are many instances where the calling party does not necessarily want their name and phone number revealed. For example, when calling a toll-free 800 number of a store or service, a person does not always want the store or service to automatically receive the person's name and phone number. This information is often fed into a computer database and is used for mass solicitations.
To address this privacy concern, the telephone companies now offer a feature known as Per Call Blocking. In order to implement this feature, the caller must enter a blocking code before dialing the number of the party being called. For example, in the Bell Atlantic calling area the code *67 must be entered on a touch tone phone prior to entering the phone number. This feature is limited to a single call and must be reentered for each subsequent call. There is no provision for blocking all calls made from a telephone subscriber's line.