Every so often, I get a call from a number belonging to an unfamiliar area code. Wondering if it might be a business inquiry, a distant friend, or a girl whose number I’d forgotten, I always wind up answering the call – only to learn that I’d won another cruise package and need to stay on the line, or that Survey RC really needed to talk to me, and so on and so forth. Worst of all, these calls tend to happen at the most inopportune times: dinner, movies, during work, etc.
Google Voice knows all about this kind of problem, which is why it has introduced a global spam filtering system that prevents you from receiving spam calls, voicemails, and text messages. Users could already report messages as being spam, giving Google a fairlystrong idea of which numbers were making spam calls. Combine this with their own set of spam-detecting tools, and what you have is a Google-provided spam filter worthy of the modern phone user.
To enable the spam filtering, log into your Google Voice account, click on the cog in the top-right corner, choose “Voice Settings,” go to the “Calls” tab, and click the check-box next to “Send calls and text messages from numbers identified as spam by Google directly to the Spam folder.” Everyone who attempts to call you, who leaves you a voicemail, or who texts you from a number flagged as spam will automatically be redirected to your spam folder. You can also set Google Voice to leave a specific message for spammers (such as a request that you be removed from their call list).
Users who have a Google Voice–enabled phone (such as a smartphone from Sprint) can use this on their standard device, while others can use the filtering for calls taken through the Google VoIP.
[Sources include: The Google Voice Blog]
