Since the NSA's Listening in Anyway, You Might as Well Get Free Phone Service

Here's a new wrinkle in telephone service: in exchange for permitting your conversations to be monitored by voice recognition software, you can call anyone, anywhere in the world, for no charge.

That's the offer that a start-up company called Pudding Media is offering its customers.  Here's how it might work, according to a company press release:

" It's Saturday night. You plan to go to a movie with Ashley. But which movie should you see...? Time to call her and decide. You surf to ThePudding.com and call Ashley for free. As soon as you start talking about movies, a list of local movies, complete with reviews and show times appear on the screen. Now, what about dinner? Just talking about where to get dinner, and offers for local restaurants are displayed. Now you and Ashley have everything you need for dinner and a movie! Oh and just a few clicks and you've reserved the tickets and a table. Sweet!"

I must admit that I have misgivings about allowing someone to monitor my telephone conversations.  However, I have no objection to services like Pudding Media, because the monitoring is truly voluntary, and you actually get something in return.

Now, if the National Security Agency would just be as helpful when they secretly monitor your calls as authorized by the grossly misnamed "Protect America Act."  But I suspect that the recommendations from ThePudding.com might be more helpful. 

To learn more about how you can protect your privacy on and off the phone, click here.

Copyright © 2007 by Mark Nestmann