[asterisk-dev] Default Caller ID

[Malcolm C. Davenport]

Hello fellow Asterisk community members!

We have been receiving an increasing number of telephone calls and e-mails from upset recipients of unsolicited or wrongly-dialed calls that have most likely been placed using Asterisk.  We're receiving these calls and e-mails because the caller identification these recipients have gotten reads "asterisk," and the recipients fire up Google, find their way to asterisk.org, and then blame "asterisk" as the party responsible for the unwanted calls.  

On one hand, one might say "Hooray, word of Asterisk is spreading, and any marketing is good marketing!"  On the other hand, one might say "It's a shame that people are given negative impressions of this wonderful thing called Asterisk."  To possibly address this moving forward, as there's nothing we can do about existing installations making these calls, we propose modifying the default caller identification presentation to something less incriminating of Asterisk: perhaps "unknown," or perhaps the IP address of the system placing the calls, or perhaps a suggestion from you.

What say you, community members?  Would making some change to the default caller identification so as to not present "asterisk," be a good thing?  Or, are we garnering more benefit through our spreading of "asterisk?"  Or, perhaps it's important to your implementation that "asterisk," remain the default presentation?

Thank you for your input. 

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Malcolm Davenport
Digium, Inc. | Senior Product Manager
445 Jan Davis Drive NW - Huntsville, AL 35806 - US
Tel/Fax: +1 256 428 6252
malcolmd at digium.com