Readers React: With corporate citizens like these, who needs regulators?

To the editor: Consumers who want to guard their privacy continue to pay for not having their information published in the phone book’s residential listings — which no longer exist. Not only is that absurd, it is the height of corporate greed and hubris. (“Paying to stay out of a phone directory that’s not even printed,” Sept. 11)

But of course we can trust corporate America to look out for our best interest. After all, we must make sure that they can compete on state and global levels. This then leads to the necessity for an easing or complete elimination of regulatory oversight. And not to worry, they will police themselves.

Does anybody truly believe we shouldn’t have an agency like the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau available to protect us from such avarice?

Rodney K. Boswell, Thousand Oaks

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To the editor: I had to laugh that the phone companies are raising their fee for non-published numbers. I can only laugh because I don’t pay it. (I guess my name and number are out there for anybody to find, but that’s OK.)

When I worked at an AT&T call center in the late 1970s, we explained the charge something like this: People wanting to find you will trouble our operators more frequently, since the number cannot be found in print, nor with the operators.

Today, the phone companies charge plenty for 411 calls. If we are paying for each call, even the old “non-published” cost argument does not hold up any longer. What a racket.

Greg Golden, Van Nuys

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