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skype
by Dameon Welch-Abemathy on March 11, 2008
A commenter to my post highlighting the Spam Over IM on Skype problem pointed out something that I am embarrassed I didn't pick up on: it's not possible to block the spammy invites from reaching your screen in the first place! That means you'll get invites like these-whether you want them or not! Considering that these invites could contain anything in terms of names and pictures, this is a huge problem, particularly if younger eyes are nearby!
Skype should permit you to either block these invites entirely-perhaps with a password for parental lockdown-or to at least offer an option not pop them up on your screen by default. I personally don't mind people asking me to be their Skype buddy, but I don't necessarily want the potential for pornographic images to be shown at inopportune times in an office setting. Seems like a sexual harassment lawsuit waiting to happen!
photo credit: philwolff
Skype should permit you to either block these invites entirely-perhaps with a password for parental lockdown-or to at least offer an option not pop them up on your screen by default. I personally don't mind people asking me to be their Skype buddy, but I don't necessarily want the potential for pornographic images to be shown at inopportune times in an office setting. Seems like a sexual harassment lawsuit waiting to happen!
Permalink: Skype: Let Me Turn Off Invite Requests
Trackback: http://publish.creative-weblogging.com/publish/mt-tb.pl/116268
Mr Wong
Vote for Skype: Let Me Turn Off Invite Requests:
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Rating: 6.33 out of 3 vote(s) cast.
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Response from:
tom
(03/11/08 10:04pm)
Response from:
neon
(08/01/09 2:18pm)
*Your site is very easy in terms of expression and open. I think everyone who enters your site is very gratifying, but also sharing a very nice opportunity to give ...
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i really believe that most people actually like the idea of ringing a phone at a specific location or a specific device(like a cell phone). with a move to presence we will have an issue that people will not know if they are being personally being blocked from calling someone(or some business, etc) or if the individual is indeed really busy or unavailable.
while there may certainly be a market for voice enabled communication within IM clients or directly on websites i only see this catching on as a supplement to and not a replacement for traditional phone service. there will always be people who like to place calls anonymously(particularly to business that they do not wish to have calls(ex. telemarketers) returned from). so what we will end up with are a lot of people use multiple VOIP accounts with different aliases and still will not be able to achieve the original goal of presence.
for similar reasons i believe that google's grandcentral is also a very flawed concept. what it does is give you one number that rings all of your phones(home, work, cell etc.) and some screening mechanisms that are based on caller ID. the problem is that most of the calls in need of screening come through without caller ID or different caller ID's each call. a far better concept is a service that lets you get rid of the excess phones(home, bussiness, etc.) and also lets you put your calls into categories that go to different voicemails, etc. but instead of giving one number for all your phones it would give a bunch of numbers that all ring one phone. that way you get rid of some phones, all calls goto your cell phone(or other) but they are segregated because you give a business number to business contacts, a personal number to friends and family, a BS number that goes straight to VM if you suspect it will be used by telemarketers.
well this ended up going completely off topic but kind of came up reading about the skype spam issues.
cheers