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e-Telephone Privacy

By Jonathan Bick
October 29, 2007
Internet telephony, or voice over Internet protocol ('VoIP'), is terminology used to refer to voice traffic carried over Internet Protocol ('IP') based broadband Internet networks. VoIP providers proffer telephone services for about $25 a month, which is appreciably less than traditional phone plans (see, for instance, www.vonage.com and www.att.com). At low cost and widening availability, VoIP is common in business, and might be used at a greater volume and frequency among tech and e-commerce companies, thus making it a technology and a commodity to watch.

Unfortunately, for consumer and businessperson alike, a concealed cost of VoIP service might be a user's privacy. That's because traditional telephone privacy is strictly sheltered by existing case law and statute, while VoIP, it could be argued, is unprotected in many instances.

VoIP facilitates oral communications to be conveyed via circuit-switched networks to and from IP networks, and vice versa. For this to happen, VoIP converts ordinary audio telephone signals into data packets that are sent over the Internet using Internet Protocol, and then reverses the transformation.

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