That's not really a privacy issue, though. That's marketing issue. That is, we let marketers destroy phones as a medium of communication. The answer to that isn't to legislate hiding your phone number. The answer to that should be to legislate this type of marketing away.

Advertising is cancer, and I'm constantly surprised by the ends to which people go to justify its continued existence.

Legislating away cold-call marketing is already done; it hasn't stopped it from happening, since it's almost impossible to trace the culprit.

US until very recently wasn't even trying. EU is, and our phones are quite usable. Things could be improved - I wish there was a way to get rid of the few marketers that find their ways to skirt the regulatory boundary. It doesn't seem impossible to achieve.

That's only because calling is the new fax. Would you ignore an SMS from an unknown number? Let's say the content was "Hey, how've you been? It's been a while!"

Actually yes. I ignore all SMSes. WhatsApp is the go-to communication method in Israel. SMS is only for government services and a company from whom I've ordered from in the past.

I get zero advertising now that I moved. It's liberating.

Relying on Facebook for communication. Horrifying.

Yes they get ignored because that's the entry point for scammers building lists of active numbers. Same as one should mute but not disconnect spam voice calls as that gives them info about your presence.

I’ve heard this “active number” and “active email” thing for a while, but isn’t the fact that the message wasn’t “returned” undeliverable a sign already? If I send an email to a GMail account that doesn’t exist, Google will reply that the account doesn’t exist. It’s the same with calling (every carrier) and texting (at least with AT&T; I just tested it)

At most I might send back a "Who is this?", but yes, I'd probably ignore it if it wasn't signed by a familiar name.