Google engineers’ robocall-blocking scheme wins kudos from FTC

Election years have become nightmares for many Americans, who are not only subjected to an endless stream of campaign ads but must also put up with campaigns and third-party advocacy groups overloading their phone lines with annoying robocalls. The Federal Trade Commission this week announced the winners of its “Robocall Challenge” competition to find ways to stop robocalls and gave special kudos to Google (GOOG) engineers Daniel Klein and Dean Jackson, who proposed “the creation of a system that allows users to report, to an online database system, the originating telephone number of unwanted solicitations, advertisements or robotically placed calls.” If the Google engineers’ system is successfully implemented, blocking robocalls could soon become as simple as blocking unwanted spam messages in Gmail accounts, which is certainly a welcome prospect for Americans who are tired of having their dinners interrupted by automated messages.