I don&#x27;t think a solution is a longer phone number. A solution is a better system that provides more security. So you can call someone by their name or other information and that person can simply block everything except for trusted friends and family. Or better yet have government run whitelists so you subscribe to it and if that business does too many shitty things they get axed from the whitelist that is instantly updated to everyone across the country.<p>What I suggested has many flaws I just don&#x27;t think extending a current, shitty system is all that useful especially since the majority of these phone numbers are purchased anyway (almost no one dials random numbers to figure out if someone is there, who they are, etc).